well. I think that rounded things off nicely. Am sure there will be lots of complaints and criticism but I enjoyed it. Jon grew some balls. Bran’s purpose finally became clear. Sansa was given some more makeup to wear. Arya was humanised again. And the Iron Throne was destroyed. ??
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I mean the whole Bran as king thing was ridiculous and unlikely and why do they still need a Night’s Watch, but ??♀️
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Waited ten years for that. Right. Ridic.
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I think I need to watch it again, but I do not have the hatred for it that the Internet seems to
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oops didn't see this thread and started another...
I was happy with the ending save for the fact that Greyworm & Co were happy to pack up and go home and leave Dany's death unavenged. As if.
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Oh and Sansa's Brexit moment cannot have been co-incidence can it?
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Heh @ the Guardian review describing Arya as going on a gap year to do a bit of travelling.
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I thought it was perfect.
I cried, I laughed, I think Dinklage was outstanding, as was Harrington
and now I can watch it all again from the start!
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Thought it was much better than the last episode.
Only complaint was Guy's one about Grey Worm above.
So many questions still which only the books will answer, if we ever get them.
Trying to remember the various people who sailed West and never came home. Definitely at least one Greyjoy and one Stark.
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Yes agreed re Grey Worm and the unsullied.
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It left me wondering what exactly Bran's interest in finding Drogon is, given that he could warg into Drogon and use him as his personal flying bomber.
I'm slightly confused as to why everyone immediately assumed that the three eyed raven tree man of history has a strong moral foundation. It's like assuming AI can only do good.
I enjoyed it thoroughly.
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And personally I love the fact that Jon ended up where he did.
(((((GHOST SNUGGLES)))))
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I assume Grey Worm and co will avenge Dany by carrying on her work to free all slaves in a bloodthirsty way
also assume that maesters are allowed wives and children in the new Westeros
why is Brienne in KL rather than sticking with Sansa?
and they clearly has no idea what to do with Arya. I thought she’d go back to Braavos
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As I say I enjoyed the finale a great deal but thinking on it I think GOT uncharacteristically chickened out of killing off Jon again. In killing Dany Jon had fulfilled his purpose and sacrificing him to ensure the unsullied and the Dothraki left with honour satisfied would have been a far more realistic ending.
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Never really understood/ cared about the Three Eyed Raven stuff tbh
loved loved loved the small council meeting
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Also thought that Jon’s end was perfect.
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I do wonder if Sansa was actually relieved in the end that Jon didn't end up on the throne. Wonder if that's why she is apologising to him.
Even with a Stark named King, she still demanded Northern independence and I really don't think Jon would have accepted that.
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I thought it was crap. Performances were great (I *heart* Dinklage) but pacing was terrible and the writing was clunky.
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unsullied and the Dothraki left with honour satisfied
The whole point there is that the Unsullied and the Dothraki had no honour left to satisfy, not after they eagerly participated in her war crimes and slaughter.
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What Orwell said. I’m very annoyed to have wasted a lot of time for that fooking ending.
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Ah... ok...by that logic why did you watch the series at all?
If it was all about the ending why 'waste' so much time getting there.
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The ending as such I have no problem with had it been arrived at in a decently written and well paced manner. It was rushed, clunky, sloppy and clearly they just wanted to get to the end of it as fast as they could. Not really what I’d hoped for and I think in retrospect even some of the D&D apologists will agree, given time.
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Brandon the Shipwright (Stark, natch) and Elissa Farman who was from Fair Isle, off the coast nearish Casterly Rock.
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It was so obvious D&D just wanted to be done with it and get on to Star Wars.
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The whole point there is that the Unsullied and the Dothraki had no honour left to satisfy, not after they eagerly participated in her war crimes and slaughter.
Um, I think you misunderstand the meaning of "honour" for these people, certainly slaying and raping innnocents in battle is pretty par for the course, we have seen that repeatedly, especially from the Dothraki, and raping and pillaging an enemy city would not be dishonourable in their world view.
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whereas failing to avenge their queen would be massively dishonourable.
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I enjoyed the episode up to Daenerys dying, everything after that was shite.
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My point that from the Westerosi lords point of view they didn't have any honour... which is why they didn't feel compelled to give them what they wanted. i.e Jon and Tyrion's heads on a platter.
And as to your point of them demanding vengeance or justice. Dothraki don't respect or really mourn 'Khals' who have been killed or defeated. To be defeated or killed is a disgrace to a Dothraki. See how they all abandoned Khal Drogo as soon as he could no longer ride a horse. Dothraki respect only power and brute strength, as soon as one Khal dies, they become solely focused on who takes over leadership, which is exactly what Khal Drogo's blood riders did once he died. Often resulting in bitter fighting and death for the role.
Therefore, as soon as Dany was dead it would be almost guaranteed that the Dothraki would immediately descend into a violent and bloody internal struggle to determine who would be the next 'Great Khal' to lead the only sole existing Dothraki khalasar left in the world. They would not have any interest in revenge or justice for Danys death they would be too busy determining their cultural survival.
The Unsullied are 'mindless' slave troops who have been trained their whole lives to only follow orders. Granted things may have changed for some of them like Grey Worm with his close relationship with Missandei and Dany but most of them will not have had any sort of similar personal relationship with her. So I can't imagine many of the Unsullied questioning anything let alone 'demanding' justice or vengeance if Grey Worm said right we are off to Naath.
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Unless they’ve heard about the butterflies in naath in which case they won’t want to go!
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Well that was a fooking anticlimax
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I feel ya Meh :/
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You don’t need a nights watch when the night king is defeated. And maesters aren’t meant to have wives and kids. And how shit was that death?! So contrived.
Even the scene where they’re making history choosing their own ruler they’re really meh. “Yeah, sure, yup, alright by me, yeah, I’m in, ok I guess”
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Much better than I thought it would be.
best scene Tyrion rearranging the chairs before they all came in to sit down and then getting pissed as they destroyed his straight lines.
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Bran? Ffs, that goofy little aunt should have been offed on day one.
highlight was edmure Tully being told to pipe down.
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Also, why was Bran “first of his name”? Wasn’t there previous Bran kings like bran the builder?
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Bran the Builder was king in the north (in fact the first one) and established house stark. But he didn’t rule over the other six kingdoms.
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Ah right. Still a little shitdick mind. They should have finished it with him being wedgied by Bron
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the problem with bran being king is that in the books there’s a lot more depth to him, so it feels like it might make a lot more sense there
whereas in the tv show he’s just the annoying bloke from the scenes you fast forwarded who states garbled stuff (cos he landed on his head?) about birds amidst repeating or predicting the obvious
i could be tv series bran
”I’m the three-eyed raven”
“you were exactly where you were supposed to be”
”everyone played the part which was intended for them”
”this thread is exactly what the reaction was supposed to be”
”the show ended when the credits rolled”
”I predict no-one will be satisfied by the books’ ending either”
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the gr7 thing about series 8 is it can be summed up as follows:
1 they fought and beat the night king
2 they fought and beat cersei
3 danaerys died
4 bran got made king
literally nothing else of note happened
no wonder this was a short series
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Gendry got to smash aryas back doors in.
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The Nights Watch was there to guard the wall against wildlings. At the beginning of the show/books no one knew anything about the Night King.
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And don't the White Walkers/Night King have form for reappearing?
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you're thinking of jeepers creepers m7. Think they used the same mask.
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Also the nights watch is a bit like the French foreign legion of old -something to keep naredowells busy.
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The whole episode was so poorly paced and explained that it made no sense at all.
No way all the Lords of the 7K's just agree to elect some crippled child as King without any semblance of debate. Historically, none of those Houses even get one. No explanation as to how they all came to be there. Supposed to be all the great Houses but no sign of the new Lord of Highgarden...
No way everyone would have just accepted the secession of the North. Or if they did, surely someone like Dorne would say I'll be off then as well. Nonsense.
Also total waste of Cersei's death. Crushed by a small pile of rubble when they could have stood literally anywhere else in those chambers and survived. It was implied in the last episode that the whole Red Keep collapsed on them.
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CAN PEOPLE STOP TALKING ABOUT fookING PACING
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To be fair - how would they know where to stand? I think she had other stuff on her mind...
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Maybe not underneath the section of roof cracking and about to collapse.
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Either way it's lazy writing to kill off one of the most interesting characters in that way.
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I thought there was an elegance in the way they killed her off, by her kingdom crumbling down around her, literally and metaphorically. Showed her vulnerability.
What would you want? An epic fight to the death with Danny? Cersei wasn't a fighter, she wasn't strong etc.
I think they got it spot on with her death.
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I think at that point she had given up... and to some extent so had Jamie - if they'd escaped out of there it would have to have been back up into the Red Keep (not out to the boat), so they'd have been burnt/hacked to death. Better to die together there?
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I thought it waz jolly good. agree with scy that i had expected bran to warg into the dragon at some point.
slightly confused about how they expect to defend the wall (if it is still necessary) after it got fxkd up by blue dragon fire.
still, leave them wanting more eh
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What Wellers said about Cersei
and continued heh at all those that go on about 'no way that could have/would have/should have happened' because:
a) it's a fooking TV show
b) it's a fooking TV show with dragons and zombies and you're concerned about the way a king is elected?
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Yeh, I think we all get that it is not a historical drama.
But the plot has to be believable in the context in which it exists. One of GoT's great strengths was it's storytelling investing you in characters and the (made up) geo-politics. This season has just been a garbled rush to the finish-line.
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By that logic Pinker, they would also never allow a queen to rule. Cersei would have been dressed in black and quietly ushered upstairs whilst men did all the talking.
People are so uptight about this programme.
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What Wellers said again
and for the record I have read all the books and think the TV show is much better as it cuts out all the boring wandering about, annoying terms ('nuncle' anyone?) and all those sodding mentions of boiled leather
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In the books hasn't there been some sort of dark power in the lands above the Wall before? I have a feeling the view is that bad stuff has happened in the North (above the Wall) before, it's happened again with the Night King, and it could happen again in the next "x" thousand years, therefore we still need the Wall and the Night's Watch.
In theory.
Still, if I was a member of the Night's Watch and I knew that, for the time being, it was all over, I'd be buggering off home about now.
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The Night's Watch wasn't just useful for protecting the Wall. It was a great place to send the 'unwanted' or those who created significant challenges and issues simply by existing i.e bastards, and second or third sons of noble houses, or sending people you really didn't want to sentence to death.
As for the killing of the Night King = the complete eradication of the threat.
The Night King as presented in the TV show doesn't exist in the books. In the books they are simply the 'Others' which would be as akin to what we see as the 'Whitewalkers' in the show. And each of these Others have the power of resurrection of the dead. There is no one of them which rules above the others. So the manner in which the battle of winterfell was won in the TV shows perhaps won't be the same as in the books.
Also the Long Night has come and gone before (during the time of Bran the Builder) and the dead were beaten back and the Wall was built and then they disappeared for over 8,000 years before they came again.
So there is just is not sufficient records or indications within the books that the battle of Winterfell would be a permanent end to the armies of the dead or the threat of the Others.
Would you gamble the entire kingdom on the assumption you'd done the job properly? Or would you maintain a force to watch and protect to see just in case they ever came back again?
Bearing in mind that's exactly what the Night's Watch has been doing for the last 8,000 years.
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I enjoyed it, I particularly liked the imagery of Dany having wings when she walked out to speak to the Unsullied. Agree with Oracle that Bran/TER has more depth in the books and it makes sense that he would be king.
I'm also coming round to the way Cersei died, everything she wanted crumbling around her and ultimately she was powerless. Drogon nudging Dany to wake her up was sad. I did like how Sansa told Edmure to sit down when he tried to self nominate.
And Ghost finally got the pets he deserved!
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I particularly liked the imagery of Dany having wings when she walked out to speak to the Unsullied
Me too. It made me think back to Viserys and all his threats about waking the Dragon.
This Dragon Queen Lady be very much awake..
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Just started my rewatch.
So if Dany and Grey Worm haven't spoken since the throne room in Dragonstone, because he 'would know when' to strike...then when exactly did she give him the order to 'kill everyone who follows Cersei Lannister'.
To me that line from Grey Worm indicates the total destruction of the city and death of everyone in it was their plan from long before the battle started.
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Oh yes Scylla (hello btw!), she was definitely awake and wouldn't stop killing.
I did wonder if Grey Worm was also acting on his own need for revenge and wanted to kill everyone in KL after what happened to Missandei
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I liked it but then immediately changed my mind because it was a bit too obvious. I liked the imagery of Tyrion walking through the map room with the rubble all over the map though.
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agree with wellers - wings imagery far to obvious and immediately took you away from immersion in the story to "oh you can see what they have done there isn't that clever?" which is sign of bad direction in my book.
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Hey Nursey! How are you?
Also … having just rewatched the whole let's choose Bran and its great he can't have kids because we will all come back here and choose the next King/Queen again scene.
I'm kind of dumbfounded that anyone thinks this is a good idea.
In practice it just means that every single time the King or Queen dies it will throw the realm into complete chaos with everything up for grabs. A massive free for all Game of Thrones with everything up for grabs in the future generations.
Not sure that was the genius idea Tyrion seems to think it was.
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Scylla I suppose if they install one of those special trees in kl and implant bran in it he could live and rule for years.
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I also thought that, Scylla
but then I thought it was deliberate to show that the chaos will continue, as emphasised by the small council meeting - after everything they have all been through they are back to the same old shit with different people.
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Didn't the Saxons essentially have such a Council via 'The Witan'. Dont think the choice of King was strictly based on birth.
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I loved the Tyrion/ rubble/ silence scenes.
Not so much the sudden move to democracy as described above. Post Bran it will all go to sh** again - leading the way for the GOT post-Bran years franchise?
Why didn't the dragon attack Jon post Dany death? It's crediting it with a lot to imply "ah well she's gone now so I might as well burn the throne"...no?
How come Sansa has access to so much make up in this series?
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I'm good thanks, how are you doing Scylla?
I will watch the episode again I think, but that scene was a bit rubbish. When Tyrion spoke of someone with stories, I half expected him to suggest Sansa. Maybe Queenie is right and chaos will continue - nothing has changed really.
Maid_M I assumed Drogon couldn't/wouldn't attack Jon because he's a Targ and maybe Drogon blamed Dany's crazy on the throne so melted it.
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Poland had elected kings for hundreds of years.
I enjoyed the look on Sansa and Arya's faces when Bran was suggested. No-one got anyone else's script so I like to think the actors didn't know until that point who it would be.
Probably wasn't the first take but still.
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Why didn't the dragon attack Jon post Dany death? It's crediting it with a lot to imply "ah well she's gone now so I might as well burn the throne"...no?
Dragon's are highly intelligent creatures but I don't think there is any record of them acting of their own free will in executing or killing people without commands from the dragon's rider to do so.. even during the Dance of the Dragons. Other than for food and eating obviously.
AeJon is the last dragon lord in the entire world (the last descendent from Valyria) so for Drogon to kill him would be massive.
My personal interpretation on why Drogon destroyed the Iron Throne is.. I think he knew it was dragon forged (by Balerion the Black Dread), he knew Dany's quest for it had destroyed her, and not only her but the entire Targaryen family and all their dragons over the years and in melting it he was saying to Jon that he would never sit on the Iron Throne he had taken from Dany.
Drogon was eradicating any last vestige of the Dragon lords and Aegon's conquest from Westeros.
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Nursey. I'm ok. Getting there.
Spurious
Poland had elected kings for hundreds of years.
I'm not saying it can't work.. I'm just saying that given the history of Westeros its highly unlikely.
I do actually agree with Blindtom above that the best chance they have for a peaceful future is to plant a weirwood tree in the throne room and start threading it through Bran.
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Good points re Targ ancestry.
I wasn't sure on the free will point - couldnt remember that from before.
I still don't think there were any real shockers from this whole series!
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funnily enough, i thought at the time of watching that it was quite notable we didn’t hear the new Prince of Dorne say “aye” nor a couple of the others (Yara? which would make sense.) would have to watch again to remember which ones. that sounded to me like they left it open for more rebellions/breakaways and was indicative of this series being truncated vs the books
the lack of a Lord of Highgarden at the king’s moot, I assumed, was down to there not being one. Tyrion wasn’t hand at that point and it was only as hand that he was able to award Bronn Highgarden
there seems to be a lot of objection to the idea of an elected king, but it was perfectly normal in medieval Europe - several of our own kings were called electors of Hannover for a reason... suspect that in the books that this whole episode will also be much less rushed and thoroughly thought through, with the brief democracy debate significantly expanded. no doubt ending up with an elector-type system of ranking nobility (which at a guess will beyond the level of the seven kingdoms as e.g. Lord Royce was there too, so there are likely to be many more electors than just the main houses)
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There is actually some precedent for it in westeros history when the Targ succession came into question.. but only in the sense of the lords making a choice from the Targ family.
What someone above said about Bronn not being present ... Tyrion would only have been able to give Highgarden to Bronn after that and once he was appointed as Hand of the King.
All the other lords present voted Aye other than Sansa. They only one I couldn’t place was the guy sitting between Samwell and Edmure. No idea who that guy was.
It’s kind of weird to think that the entire future existence of House Stark now relies totally on Sansa. Which means she is going to have to marry and have kids whether she wants to or not.
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by someone, assume u mean me...
are u sure all the lords voted “aye”? i’ve only watched it once, but pretty sure that we skipped a few and went straight to Sansa, so we never actually heard some of them say it (the one i noticed was the prince of dorne as i said)
clearly Tyrion then said “lord of the six kingdoms” which implied that the others all voted aye, but i thought at the time that the scene left it purposefully ambiguous and a gap for the book to fill, because the show just wanted to keep it simple
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is this what mansplaining feels like?
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You’re a man?
If so that makes your user name entirely historically incorrect given the Oracle of Delphi is the Priestess Pythia.
[for the record that’s how mansplaining is done]
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I watched with subtitles and they definitely all said aye
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heh
don’t worry i’m enjoying being on the receiving end for once as now I get presumptuously to hold myself out as woke
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So I’ve just watched S1 E1
everyone looks really young and the acting is really hammy
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Yep everyone said aye except Sansa and Arya (who presumably wasn't expected to say anything). There were a few we didn't see say it but heard them.
Scylla who was the guy on the far right? And who were the two between Gendry and Yara? (Still can't get on board with Yara, stupid name).
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Another question - at the end - was it meant to be that Snow et all were LEAVING the Wall for good ie the Night's Watch wasnt needed and they all trekked off to start a new lovely life north of the Wall? Was he looking back at it one last time because they wouldn't return?
Also, bit harsh that Jamie got a write up in the history books but Cersei didn't, or was it men only?
Bit of a rubbish ending but dont think it deserves all the criticism online!
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Cersei wasn't in the Kingsguard
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Wasn't sure what the book covered - thought it was all significant figures in the post Robert B era, not just fighters
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I think the ending was open to interpretation.
I thought it was Jon + Tormund + free folk off to live a happy life beyond the wall
some suggest it was a large ranging expedition
the 'history book' was the book of knights so Cersei wouldn't have been in it anyway
for spurius:
https://www.theverge.com/2019/5/20/18632140/game-of-thrones-got-season-8-hbo-final-king-bran-meeting-edmure-tully-robin-arryn-dorne
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The book was specifically the Kingsguard I thought. Otherwise Brienne would have her own entry.
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Thanks Queenie, yes I thought that was it too as all the women/ children went too.
I did think they'd throw in a "or is it all harmony really?" suggestion to suggest troubles to come/ a post GOT spin off but it was nicely nicely tied up with goodness
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Also thought Brienne might be preggers so that was one prediction that didnt happen
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so many things were set up for potential spin-offs as it's clear that it's the same old shit as usual despite the new players
although apparently all the new spin-offs will be prequels
bound to be a reunion miniseries at some point tho
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It was the kingsguard book. Hence the first page Brienne flicks from, which you hardly see, is Duncan the Tall/Dunk. Who is thought to be her ancestor (think GRRM has confirmed this although no-one knows how yet).
Queenie, that link doesn't know who the people I asked about are.
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yesp - prequels for Cersei etc as children/ Ned's siter's secret marriage and the Targ ancestry would be good but thr touble is we know what happens!
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oops, my keyboard appears to be typing with a lisp/ lack of rs then stray ones ;)
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I thought Dany would end up upduffed which would mean Jon wouldn't be able to kill her and would have protected her or some such.
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On my re-watch and its a lot more poignant when you've just seen Joffrey teasing his 'uncle' about the fact he only has half a page vs Duncan's 4 pages and "how is he going to do any great deeds with only one hand".
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I don't know who those peeps are but the guy on the far right is one of the Northern Lords I thought.
As several people above noted Brienne was completing the history of the Kingsguard when she was writing Jaime's story in the book SO that combined with her sitting on the small council means that she is the first ever female Captain of the Kingsguard!
My interpretation of the Jon/Wildling scenario is that Jon was heading into the North forever. Also that Bran had done/planned/anticipated this as a way for Jon to be free.... of everything. Free of his past, free from being a 'bastard', free from being a Targaryen just free.
The really big thematic issue which came out of the final episode for me was the role of history and how history is written, shaped and is always incomplete.
Brienne shaping/skewing the version of Jaime's history as recorded in the Kingsguard history and Tyrion being entirely absent from A Song of Fire and Ice: A record of the Wars after the Death of King Robert when we know what an important role he played.
So just as this generation never knew the truth about the events of Robert's Rebellion, the next will not have the truth of these events.
History is written by the victors and usually from a distance.
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The other big question of course left open by the ending is why no one refers to Jon’s true parentage and name during the discussion about choosing a King.
He is still simply referred to as Jon Snow.
This has to mean that the only people at that meeting who know who he is are the Starks, Sam and Tyrion. Because I can’t imagine any scenario in which the others know his true identity and they don’t at least discuss it.
So... the question remains. Who exactly was Varys sending all those scrolls announcing Jons true identity to.
Because it certainly doesn’t seem to have been the Lords of Westeros.
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