And what's the point of Jon Snow?

Looking sour

While the last two season were written like crap and we missed out on seeing so many great stories, I don't think we should have been surprised about too many of the big arching story lines:

We saw Dany's ruthlessness build up consistently throughout the seasons, from watching her brother die, to crucifying nobles, to burning the Khals alive, to murdering Sam's father and brother.

Jon is the prince who was promised. He's half ice, half fire. He saved Westeros from both the Long Night and from the Targaryen Dynasty.

Was really fun reading back through this thread over the years to see all the discussion and theory. Thanks for everyone who made the good seasons even better with the weekly discussion and theorizing. Just some highlights that made me smile.

I wish we got my version of Bran.

Not such a fantasy after all

I also enjoyed reading this:

"Robert's Rebellion was based on a lie."

Pretty interesting and important plot point that the show never addressed. Basically they butchered the entire R+L=J story line.

Whose lie was it? It was almost certainly Littlefinger.

Littlefinger would have been about 14 years old when Robert's Rebellion started. He wasn't a player yet.

It's more accurate to say the rebellion was based on a misunderstanding. Robert Baratheon and Ned Stark reasonably concluded that Lyanna was kidnapped by Rheagar. Nobody lied to them about it and neither of them ever said anything they believed was untrue (until Ned after the rebellion was over).

Jorah killing Dany is a terrible idea.

Much better Season 8:

Do you think 15 years old is too young to lie? Especially to someone who just beat you in a duel for the love of your life? Brandon Stark was as honor-bound as any Stark and definitely would have sought out Littlefinger for dishonoring his betrothed's sister.

What makes him turn away from that and suddenly charge to the capital and demand the crown prince's head? An even bigger insult to family honor, his sister being "kidnapped" by Targaryen loyalists.

There's a theory that Benjen knew Lyanna wasn't kidnapped but he was stuck at Winterfell, was sworn to secrecy and couldn't tell anyone until the war had already started.

I don't think it's clear at all that Ned didn't know that Lyanna went willingly. What is he supposed to do with that information? She's betrothed to Robert, the fact that she loves Rhaegar doesn't at all make it OK for her to up and leave, that's not how the world works. Robert was in love with her and wouldn't have heard a word about it. If you look at Ned's POV chapters in the books, his thoughts about Rhaegar don't seem like he bears him animosity.

Warning, book stuff from now on.

The Rebellion was only based on a lie if you buy the story that those Houses were totes loyal to the Targs, but wouldn't you know it, Rhaegar stole one of their women and unfortunately they have no choice but to go get her back. However, this is likely to be a whitewashing of history, the story is probably more complicated. There is a theory known in fandom as "Southron Ambitions", after this quote from Lady Dustin (a book-only character) talking to Theon:

What does she mean by this? Well, we know that the lords of Houses Tully, Baratheon, Stark, Arryn and perhaps Lannister were unusually close at this time, and the houses were linking themselves together with intermarriage. Ned and Robert were fostered together by Lord Arryn at the Eyrie. Catelyn was betrothed to Brandon Stark, Robert to Lyanna. Lord Hoster Tully sought to betroth his daughter to Jaime Lannister, possibly intending to bring them into the alliance, but Aerys II foiled this by naming Jaime to his Kingsguard.

This is all very unusual. If you look at Westerosi history, normally the children of Great Houses are betrothed to vassal houses, to strengthen the Great House's position with their bannermen. This heavy intermarriage between Great Houses is likely to be a sign that there was a conspiracy between at least 4 of them to wrest power from Aerys II. With the disappearance of dragons, Targaryen control over Westeros is not really backed by anything anymore. So the theory is that the Rebellion was coming anyway and that Lyanna eloping with Rhaegar provided a convenient excuse. There's more to the story, but that's a bare bones version.

Obviously this also raises the question of how "mad" Aerys II really was. He was a psycho, don't get me wrong, but was he actually wrong to execute Rickard and Brandon? It's likely they were engaging in a little light treason.

From an interview with Garcia and Antonsson, who co-wrote TWOIAF with GRRM:

Sounds about right.

Bran is really going to have to tap into the tree of exposition to flesh out that theory.

Can't tell if you mean you think it's unlikely. I think it's pretty close to a lock to be a thing, but GRRM might not ever join the dots. Might be left as hints.

It's really silly when people use the execution of the Tarlys as a sign that Dany was going "mad". They committed treason. They were a sworn ally of House Tyrell. They betrayed the Tyrells (and Dany) when they chose to join Cersei instead (for reasons still unknown). Ned Stark, Robb Stark and Jon Snow all executed people for less.

Yeah the Tarlys had to go that's ****ing obvious. The bigger problem is why they acted like they did when Randall was a sworn loyal ally to Danny's father he would have bent the knee faster than Usain Bolt in the books and would have been delighted do so, probably become her chief military strategist.

Thinking about it some more, the finale is dramatically better if they don’t cast Dany as a lunatic warmonger tyrant. If you just rewrite the dialog of her rally speech and her convo with Jon, you can have her defend her atrocities as an ambiguously madness-tinged political decision, relying on the themes of love/fear/legitimacy that are already in E5, and Jon’s decision to kill her becomes much more ambiguous and complicated. (Maybe she actually executes Tyrion too?) If the show is a little more self-aware about Bran being a ludicrous choice of king (and the scene where all the lords scorn democracy because the peasants are dumb animals wasn’t played for laughs?), that finale would be much more interesting.

I feel like all of the episodes of this season are perfectly fine in a vacuum, if you didn't know anything about any of the characters and you didn't require the basic things the show wants you to believe to be consistent from week to week.

Let's keep in mind once again that Aegon Targaryen I conquered all of Westeros except for Dorne starting out with roughly 1,600 troops and 3 dragons. After seeing the destructive power of the dragons at Harrenhal and the Field of Fire (where Aegon defeated a host 5 times the size of his army), the North and Vale essentially surrendered without a fight.

After the Battle of the Loot Train basically no one would stand against Dany. Bronn knew Cersei was done and so did Jaime. The Lannister/Tarly force couldn't handle the Dothraki. The Unsullied gained their rep by crushing an enormous Dothraki horde. Oh and then there's dragons.

Even ignoring this and other basic problems in strategy and logic ("Dany sorta forgot about the Iron Fleet" and apparently has no advance scouts, and can't see an entire fleet from 1,000 feet in the air) there's no week to week consistency.

The showrunners went to great pains to show how much Dany had lost, she felt unloved and betrayed (again, this doesn't even make any sense as everyone in the North would/should be eternally grateful after she lost half her armies for their cause) and made sure to remind us with a voice montage of everyone in the history of the show talking about how crazy Targaryens were. D&D said that Dany just snapped and that if all these terrible things didn't happen, she wouldn't have done this.

The next week, she's not "mad" or angry or feeling unloved or betrayed. She's just delusional, so we're left to believe she was just a basic totalitarian dictator all along. She went from "now we will win the last war" to "we will 'liberate' everyone all over the world."

Dany as a tragic figure who who started with good intentions but suffered from hubris, entitlement and a god complex and ended up as a brutal ruthless dictator is a terrific story. Too bad they didn't know how to tell the story.

Yea, exactly. Makes me wonder what the general public would have thought about those turn of events if S7 and 8 were actually a well-told story.

Ok, so who had "jumped off a pile of dead wights"?

https://www.cnet.com/news/game-of-th...he-night-king/

Makes perfect sense!

sad when the documentary for the season is better than said season, loved the Stark Strongbeard extra.

of all the videos I've seen destroying the final season (and that's all I've watched on youtube for like a week) this by far is the funniest and most well put together.

Like if you were going to sum up why the last season sucked to someone that doesn't watch the show I would say 'here watch this'

I doubt that only because Dumb and Dumber loooove shocking the audience. these are the same *******s that made Robb's wife pregnant with baby Ned then get stabbed at the Red Wedding when none of that was in the books

"Yeah this Red Wedding scene, I feel like it lacks impact. Let's slaughter a pregnant woman to make it really hit home."

I've been watching season 3 though and I can't believe how good it is, and a lot of it is due to D&D. Don't forget how much was a pure show invention, like conversations between Varys and Littlefinger. Also, fleshing out Margaery's character in what's essentially "POV" scenes that the books lack are a really great touch.

Season 3 is probably the best one, although a few are close. I think you can make a reasonable argument for everything but 5 and 8.

My favorite episode is "Winds of Winter" S6E10