Bran Flake going off to become a tree. Sanza having to marry a dwarf to bring peace to the realm. Arya being the only Stark left, really. Bran is a tree, Sanza is a Lannister. Her brother Rickon, dead. Robb, dead. Her father and mother, dead. Her beloved half brother, actually her cousin, reaffirming his oath with the Night's Watch after his lunatic girlfriend dies in childbirth. Their newborn son, a Targaryen, reigning in King's landing as king with Regents Tyrion and Sanza ruling. Literally everyone Arya grew up with dead or fled. Poole the steward, dead. Hullen, Jory, Mullen, Harwin, all dead. Septon Mordane, dead. Her dancing master, dead. Theon, dead. Yoren, dead. Lommy, dead. The Hound? Well, idk, but I'm not optimistic.

How much more tragedy do you want for the Starks? How much more for Arya? Everyone she knows but Hot Pie and Gendry are going to be dead or gone.

I think Beric lives...it would be ironic...by now. he's hoping for a good death and does not want to be resurrected yet again, obviously. So he survives.

How can they not have one of the direwolves be part of the dead army?

Jon's reveal to Dany and the dragon riding scene piss me off so much. Clearly these should be combined: Dany lamenting that no one else can ride a dragon. Jon insists he try, Dany says no for obvious reasons. Jon states his lineage, then dragon riding scene.

Not doing it this way makes me wonder if the writers even paid attention to the books or the show.

- very good: "half cup"

- the knighting of brienne will be a lot more "glamorous" in the books. i guess all of them sitting together, telling stories and gettting kinda mad drunk and than somebody drops the "*** tradition" lets get brienne knighted. still this scene was really good if not great.

- underwhelming: given that there is so less time left, i am expecting more to happen in the show than what just happened. still, episode 2 was pretty great and that - see somebody above - without any action.

- any chance the "jon=targaryen=rightful king"-secret will never be mentioned, jon dies and the secret dies with him (dany, sam and bran not telling anybody)??!!

- i fear that the action episode wont have too much story-telling

I think its borderline impossible that Jon dies (without being resurrected again, which seems unlikely too), The show has devoted too much time to the Jon stuff to just kill him off before he becomes the reluctant king he is destined to be. The show really hasn't shown a similar interest in any other character than Jon since S5 or ever. His resurrection, his parentage, etc etc. It just seems absurd, even for GOT, to just kill him off without giving any payoff to all of that.

I think Jon was raised from the dead to defeat the dead. I think that Jon dies with the Night King.

GRRM and others have said that the resolution of the "main story" will be similar in the books and show. By "main story" they mean Jon and Dany, basically, you know, the Song of Ice and Fire. So Jon won't die to the Night King because the Night King doesn't exist in the books. I have hopes for it to be a good ending because it's GRRM-written.

Then want is the point of all this drama about who his parents are? That all seems basically irrelevant if he just dies fighting the NK.

I guess he fits the description better of Azor Ahai, being a "king" or whatever, but still seems like way too much devoted to his true identity for him not being named King at the end.

After rewatching this scene, or at least this part of the scene, is really great.
nikolai casual waldau is just awesome, best actor in the show AINEC imo.

I mean the books have The Others. So I think that whatever has gotten a bee in The Others' bonnet and made them want to tear down the wall and zombify everyone in service of this is ALSO what is allowing folks to get raised from the dead -- Cat, Jon, Beric. So once the Others are defeated, or placated, or whatever, then whatever is raising the Others' wights and the southern wights will lose its power. Jon dies, Cat dies, Beric dies,

Are the night children all dead now? I can't remember.

I don't think anyone knows for sure. It seemed like they all died during 'The Door' but it wouldn't surprise me if the show brought them back for some deus ex machina ****

some of you seem to think that the show needs to be following what the books have already laid out....and not what has just happened only in the show.

These are different stories using the same set up and characters.

with the same ending

In the book there are hints there are still children left but it would be stupid to use them in the show. Also Bran would know if there are any left.

I don't think its going to be as close to the same as you think.

If Cersei is still alive this late in the books, I will be so disappointed.

The show is playing out (to me) like the white walkers plotline was a bit of a dud, so they needed to get that over with and get back to having a main villain who was around since S1.

I argued exactly the same thing on r/asoiaf. I'm hoping they do dispense with the WW plot as quickly as possible, because given the mothership trope they've got going, ending the WW threat essentially means killing the Night King. And he's a terrible character, I mean not even a character really. When you start thinking about him blundering around in the South in some kind of three-way battle with Cersei, you start seeing him for what he is: an impediment to the story unfolding.

I mean look at the scene in the last ep. The revelation to Dany of Jon's parentage and then, actually, gotta shelve that to fight this frankly boring Dark Lord. That's what he is, just something that gets in the way of interesting story actually happening.

I frequently have no faith at all in the showrunners, but on this sort of thing, I feel like they will have come to the same conclusion. The mechanics of storytelling, what has to happen narratively to lead to other things, the trimming of loose ends, etc, I think they've done a generally good job of keeping things structured. It's just the actual plotting that sucks.

I can't disagree with chris & bluegrass here, but man would it be a massive head fake if that's where it ends up. Allllll the hype in the trailers for S8, plus the way S7 ended, really made it feel as though it was the NK's world and everyone else is just living in it.

Plus I distinctly remember a spoilery post on HBO's twitter feed that showed the army of the dead marching on KL. They took it down but it's probably out in the ether somewhere.

The pacing certainly sucks. I believe Martin's original timeline states that book 3 ends where he wanted the first third of the story to end. 4 and 5 were kind of interim because he realized he couldn't fast forward several years. That means that book 6 and 7 each need to be a third of his original storyline. That's impossible to do with the show obviously, but it's possible that he does it with the books. He's referred to Book 6 as "King Kong" or something like that.

Anyways the show kind of needs to just wrap up the first third of the story, but it already laid the foundation for the White Walkers, which is the second third. They have no time to expand on that part of the story so now it's just best to get it out of the way. I assume that the dragons die, the heroes are left outnumbered and there's a big fight against Cersei. I don't see the books playing out like this at all.

Definitely books will be nothing like this. Doing this plot exactly is actually impossible, since the NK doesn't exist in the books (and I don't think he ever will) so this whole Mothership Trope thing they're doing, using Bran as bait, that can't happen in the books. Even if it's just misdirection from the NK and he never shows, it's still a plot point that makes no sense in book context.

its like 90%+ that the night king exists its just we're so far from the show we havent seen him mentionned yet

if jorah dies, he will surely use the sword sam gave him heroically before he dies.

and at arya saying "sansa is the smartest person i ever met"

I think the Lord of Light and the Great Other will both be expanded on a great deal in the books. The showrunners have proven incapable of doing any plot writing beyond what GRRM had given them, so both these plotlines are falling completely flat. If the NK/GO do exist, they will be something more than just the endgame-badguy-boss to kill to scatter the army of the dead.



BTW sorry if I'm quite the debbie downer, I'm just so disappointed with these last two seasons. I hope others are enjoying it, but I am not. I really wish I could avoid watching the season and be unspoiled for the books but I think it's just impossible.