Don't read anything into it, it is just terrible writing. B and W saying "Hey, let's make it look like Littlefinger is winning but really...wait for it....get this....HE ISN'T. AWESOME, LOL, THAT'S GOLD JERRY, GOLD".

They love these fake reveals where anyone who has paid the slightest bit of attention already knows that the fakeout can't happen. It is morons writing horribly for viewers who are also morons.

I think you can draw some parallels to Golem's arc in LotR. He murdered a friend due to greed, it isn't clear why he's still part of the narrative, our hero sees that maybe there is still something good in him.

Next season we find out whether he is redeemed, or bites John's finger off and in the process kills the Night King.

Such a perfect description.

Honestly just look at this:

https://www.buzzfeed.com/jennaguilla...4k9#.imXVDdrzW

The show now panders to absolute bottom feeder ******s. What I find amazing is how people this dumb were patient enough with the first 4 seasons of the show.

Littlefinger is Protector of the Vail. He has to be dealt with publicly so as to not turn the Vail against them. Once his guilt is established, he's free to get got.
As for the maneuvering to get them all in the same room . . . bad plotting / writing.

Imdabes: Interesting, I didn't remember that at all. I'm sure grrm has more use for him but I'm not too sure about the show. I'd bet money that Jon is the one who kills the night king, and cinematically it seems difficult to work bran into any epic fights. Warging isn't that different from just showing a fight happen except the animal's eyes look different.

I don't necessarily think he dies like others do, but I think he will have a backseat role.

Eskimo: that article is incredibly depressing. I seriously hope HBO paid to have it put up.

Other thread discussing tyrion switching sides made me wonder: is grrm under contract to release his books the same way that he told the show runners the story ends? Like is it possible he says "tyrion murders cersei" then has Jaime do it in the books?

D and d obviously under no obligation but I wonder if that works both ways. Is "I changed my mind after I saw the show" a good enough defense?

I do think Littlefinger has to be called out publicly. I'll rewatch with some care tonight, but it seemed to me from watching it last night that Baelish comes close to admitting his guilt, at least in the eyes of everyone there. What if he never bends and instead responds to Sansa "I deny each and every charge. And I demand trial by combat?"If he does that, Arya can't really kill him then and there.

Put a little differently, his responses ("you don't have proof"; "if I could just speak to you alone"; "I'm the lord of the Vale and I deserve an escort home") aren't quite denials, and instead look more like ducking and therefore an admission of guilt.

I do like that Sansa passed the sentence but did not herself swing the sword.

there was a scene were bran warged a platoon of ravens and he saw the undead army, than night king sees warg-bird and the warging stops. back to bran (e4 or 5).

in said scene, the night king is standing on the "isle" were the magnificient seven later would protect their zombie-napping.

Hopefully he has a better end as the villain in the 3rd Maze Runner, in which he plays almost the exact same character

I think Sansa and Gendry sit on the throne at the end with Jon raising incest kid in Winterfell because he will have no interest in ruling.

There is no way Dany is ruling at the end based on the House of the Undying vision in season 2. Either she dies or stays with Jon in Winterfell as she understands everything will stay the same if she rules. Maybe she see's that ruling is driving her down the path to madness. She already has fed people to her dragons and burned the Tarly's alive when she didnt have to and is paranoid of Tyrion and Varys.

Glad there is one season left as it is seriously declining in quality but is still a enjoyable show imo.

I don't think GRRM is ever finishing the books, but I'd be very interested to see how the books go vs. how the show ends up.
Something tells me the show will have a somewhat happy ending. I think someone will be on the Throne besides Cersei or at the very least something like the Wire, where they just show that the cycle will repeat itself- ie Dany in power, but a terrible ruler of the people.

I could definitely see the books ending with everyone dead or someone like Littlefinger actually survives it all, but there is nothing left to rule. Maybe it's because of what's going on in the world right now, but there definitely seems to be a theme in the books that if we can't put aside our differences for the common good, we're all going to die.

I'll assume every guess that isn't Jon or Danearys on the iron throne is book related. After last ep Jon is probably a -500 fav for the show. The possibility of the show randomly throwing someone on the iron throne without dropping 50 not subtle hints about it beforehand is about 0.

Jon will reluctantly take the throne after cersei is defeated and Dany is dead, Sansa will be the lady of winterfell. The more interesting surprisingly non obvious question for the show is who would Jon's Queen be? Can't really be Dany (even if she lives) and there are no other young women possibilities in the show that have gotten any screen time really.

bran: "jon has to know his parentage! it's crucial CRUCIAL! he is heir to the throne!"

sam: "you could send him a raven?"

bran: "sam! you're full of brilliant ideas! why didn't i think of that?"

I liked how Arya just walked up to Littlefinger and slit his throat like it was the most natural thing evaa, no fuss no muss. I used to hate Arya back when she was the spunky tomboy, but this new cold-blooded killer I'm rather fond of.

Ice Ygritte!

You picked the wrong sister.

Yeah that was my read too.

But again, Bran has known about Littlefinger since before the dagger scene, and he taunted Littlefinger about that with the chaos is a ladder quote. So like, Bran knew all along and kept quiet for maximum dramatic impact?

It's just lazy writing.

Dont understand why GRRM writes so many other books instead of finishing the important ones. Might try to cash in during the hype. No hype once the end is written probably.

For a season final it was kinda of a letdown. Killing LF was the only main attraction and the final few minutes althought that was kinda expected at this point.

During the meeting I thought Jon Snow might offer to step down as King in the North, give Sansa the rule to make way for the truce. The turnaround of Cersei seemed just too simple. Wondered what Tyrion offered her in secret although she showed her real motives later.

GRRM is probably waiting for the TV show to be over. then he will change things that didn't work in the show.

Cersei's plan was also made for TV pointlessness.

So like, what if Jon had said yes? Euron had already left. Was she going to cancel that part of her plan?

Why even do the whole thing? Just say yes to the initial ****ing truce, pull your armies back, then send them right back out. This was just to set up a confrontation with Jaime that only existed because he saw the wight.

I also don't understand why Cersei cared so much about Jon. Like, that's her big deal breaker, and not the 2 dragons + unsullied + dothraki? It's a decimated Norrhern army that is her deal breaker?

It doesn't matter what Jon says, Dany is coming for her.

Def my biggest gripe for this season and beyond, I cannot watch another scene of her giving a smug speech about destroying her enemies. My fav development of the finale was Jamie finally leaving her, killing her would of been a lot better though.

The show can still be entertaining but damn is it annoying how inexplicably stupid some of the scenes are. It's literally a high budget fan fiction at this point. Cool to see stuff like walker dragon destroy the wall. Rest is lulz terrible. We all knew the R+L=J twist. We all knew Sansa would likely take down LF. Small chance they ever flesh out the WWs / hive minded necromancy/warging stuff in the shows.

Too many things to hate on but some of the general topics I think the show is struggling with:

-Bran no longer in isolation and is all knowing but is generally unused / tucked away from the main characters, scheming.
-Dragons can nuke everything and are unstoppable but they don't want Cersei to run/give up.
-Scheming/politics now irrelevant because Dragons trump all

I think GRRM will be less motivated now. Possibly he gets 1 more book out but thats it. Books/fan theories/podcasts, and first 4 seasons or so were a great ride. Might read some of GRRMs other stuff now.

What was weird was making a big deal out of R+L=J when that was revealed last year.

Was gonna make a post about this but these posts have most of what I wanted to say. That plotline was emblematic of how the show is written now to arrive at super sick dramatic REVEALS whether or not it makes any storytelling sense to do it. I saw Sansa's "....Lord Baelish?" coming a mile off but my reaction was still "wait, what?".

So like... at least some of the conflict between Sansa and Arya was real. There was the scene with just the two of them. So why does Arya finding out that Littlefinger is a creep mean she's not distrustful of Sansa anymore? Don't all her worries about Sansa still apply? How did they reconcile? When did Bran tell Sansa all the stuff about LF? Why did he wait so long? What did that scene look like? Why did Sansa make this big show about dragging Arya before the court? That appeared to be, like Fly said, a scene for the audience. Wouldn't it confuse hell out of the other northern lords?

My point here isn't just that the whole thing makes no sense, it's that I actually wanted to see those scenes where Sansa and Arya realize what a scumbag LF is. I feel like we got robbed of those in order to set up this DRAMATIC REVEAL that was lame and predictable. Think about how all this could have gone down instead. We could have had LF spy on Sansa speaking to Bran, and then a game of cat and mouse where LF knows the walls are closing in. Maybe we could have had a complete callback to the scene of Ned's betrayal, where LF thinks he still has the Knights of the Vale on his side, and then the big reveal is that Sansa has already got them onside and they seize him instead of protecting him. There are a million ideas, instead we got this dumb reveal that was achieved by withholding good scenes from the audience.