GAME OF THRONES SEASON 8--Final Run-- Part 5

The Inside the Episode segments are highly entertaining where the showruiners justify their blunders...

Manbearcat said:

See, this is interesting to me (and one of the reasons I brought up gaming as a corollary or coincidental reference-point if you'd like).

I've enjoyed the ramped-up pacing.

/snip

Coming back full circle to my initial statement, my gaming preferences follows suit; economy of time and action with a ceaseless deluge of hard choices + an onslaught of conflict as it snowballs then crescendos into climax and denouement...no "wasted" motion.

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Ramped up pacing with logical sense thrown in sure...but this was senseless.

I also disagree with @hawkeyefan with his (and I'm going to say it) apologist view of the scorpion use. Again this goes back to what feels 'more real'

For instance

Episode 4 scene
Instead of having Bronn complete the Tyrion sidestory (I will pay you double), they should have tasked him with assassinating the Dragon Queen after the NK debacle. In that moment Missandei dies saving Daenerys taking the deadly bolt. Then we would not have that unnecessary Euron/Missandei moment and her silly execution but the grief would still be real.

Revised Episode 5
Remove dragon getting killed by Euron, rather have the dragon wounded in the battle by one of the scorpions, as it crashlands alive in KL. It makes the scorpions seem useful/effective but not supermagical and doesn't have to nullify them from one episode to the next. Jon, who was riding said dragon falls into the water before the beast crashlands into the city.

The Bells Ring, but the scorpions on the walls have already taken aim at the wounded dragon writhing and lashing about in the city, they ignore the bells and fire to slay the beast. The death of her dragon after the sounding of the bells sends Daenerys over the edge (having lost Jorah, been betrayed by Varis who attempted to poison her, Jon's secret now out, lost another dragon needlessly and believing to have lost Jon too, maybe even Greyworm - see below), she begins the massacre – and in the process slays innocents. Feeling alone and Mad with Emotion. Daenerys needed many losses in a short space of time to make her lash out the way she did.
Unbeknownst to her Jon survives and watches in horror at the the devastation she wreaks.

Davos pulls back the Northmen and the Vale soldiers (where is their leader) but Greyworm/Unsullied and a handful of Dothraki push on butchering and continue the slaying. Also we do not need to mushroom these forces everytime there is fight - it is ok to use less extras!!!* They could have also given Greyworm a cool action scene with the Golden Company captain, Harry Strickland. Perhaps Greyworm dies. What a wasted opportunity not to use Strickland.

Arya finds and kills Ilyn Payne – the one who beheaded her father. Cleganebowl ensues – with Arya forced perhaps to push the Hound/the Mountain over the edge into the fire, at the Hound’s behest as he asks for her help, thereby crossing off another two names of her list, leaving only Cersei as the remaining name. We didn't need a repeat of The Mountain/Oberyn fight.

Euron and Yara meet – with Yara killing her uncle and taking back the Ironborn fleet. Better this than that farcical moment and death scene with Euron/Jaime. Honestly, what were they thinking? Or forget Yara and just have Euron burned at his scorpion up by Daenerys - no more than 10 seconds wasted on this joke of a character.

Meanwhile Arya pushes on, to be surprised by Qyburn and the kids (Varys’s ex-little birds). Unable/unwilling to slay children Arya is overwhelmed – enter Cersei. Soliloquy ensues with Cersei moving to kill a bound Arya. In the last moments, Jaime rescues Arya, having heard a damning confession from Cersei, enough for him to pierce through the blind love he had for her and so he fulfills the prophecy with him strangling her as the building around them begins to crumble. Arya makes her escape and in the fleeing moments sees Maester Qyburn fall victim to the fallen debris.


That would have been a better episode 5, IMO:
1) Jaime/Cersei arc complete, prophecy fulfilled;
2) Arya crosses all her names off her list – arc fulfilled;
3) Cleganebowl – Hound arc complete;
4) Makes use of Harry Strickland and the Golden Company better;
5) Greyworm gets to show off and be part of an action scene;
6) Euron character limited to allow for more use of time for better storyarcs;
7) Use of Davos and depicts Northmen/Vale not as savages/wildings;
8) Qyburn’s scorpions seem useful/effective in a realistic manner as opposed to superweapon before the fight then a big 0 on the actual day;
9) 1 less dragon = same as before.
10) 1 dragon not used in the entire destruction of everything and at least losses are suffered on Khaleesi's side (1 dragon);
11) Death of the dragon would probably be more emotional with more on-screen time - as it is slowly butchered by the Golden Company and the scorpions, unable to escape its plight.
12) Better justifies Khaleesi’s descent of going ‘mad’ - adds in the 'mad with grief' angle too

Thing we lose with this
1) Missandei’s start and end story-arc in chains, I found it poetic.
2) Bronn/Tyrion – I will pay you double side story.


* More on this. You want the viewer to see her forces diminish drastically to realise how isolated and unappreciated she feels - having lost 90% of her forces against the NK, so why do they keep mushrooming them in episodes thereafter. I mean the Long Night seems to have failed in all areas if they cannot reflect a much smaller army.

This episode was one giant character assassination. I know that they were trying to build up to Dany's madness, but they had not built it up to the point where killing thousands of innocent civillians feels like something she would do. This feels completely divorced from her character up to this point.

Also, apparently dragon fire behaves like a missile now, and has concussive force to blow apart stone buildings. According to the books, dragonfire can melt stone... but it is not explosive.
At this point I suspect George RR Martin gave the show runners some very basic outlines of how the story would end:

-Dany goes mad
-The Red Keep falls.
-Cersei and Jamie die in each other's arms
-The Hound and The Mountain fight, and the Hound dies by fire.
-Euron dies by Jamie's hands.

But it doesn't seem the details were fleshed out by him yet, and so he gave them the freedom to do whatever, thus explaining how clunky this all feels. It lacks the feeling that anything came full circle, or that gutpunch from earlier seasons, when they were still more or less following the books. There's a lot of plot points from the books that did not get a pay off at all, and I don't suspect they will with the final episode.

-No pay off to Sansa's dream about the Hound
-No pay off regarding the valonqar prophecy
-No pay off to The Hound's spiritual journey
-No pay off to the Ironborn and to Asha's (Yarra) storyline

By the way did Arya do anything useful at all this episode apart from running around a lot?

Imaculata said:

By the way did Arya do anything useful at all this episode apart from running around a lot?

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Did anyone?

I saw a great thread on Twitter regarding why the show feels so different from the books. Basically the thesis was that GRRM writes books organically - asking what these characters would do in this situation and lets the plot evolve from there. Whereas these last few seasons the show has been entirely focused on the plot and the "events" they want to happen, rather than really being focused on the characters motivations. So the show ended up as something like a checklist, in contrast to how the books keep ballooning with more and more character detail.

Waiting for subverting expectations and Ghost getting the throne.

Predictability isn't to bad. Just watched Wonder Women and she defeats Ares. Blowing up Starkiller base kinda guessed it.

One episode left. It's been a crazy ride. Whatever else I might think about how things have been going at least it's been entertaining.


What I would like to happen:
- Throne room. Dany orders Drogon to kill Tyrion for treason. Jon Snow does nothing.
- Tyrion reveals his real father was a Targaryen, Drogon refuses to act.
- Dany orders Grey Worm to kill Tyrion. Jon Snow does nothing.
- Grey Worm trips on his feet and falls into Drogon's mouth. Drogon chokes and bites down. Both die.
- Jon Snow removes his face. It's Littlefinger. Petyr kills Dany and sits on a partially melted Iron Throne.
- Sansa walks in and says "that worked out just like we planned". Petyr gives her the North.
- Arya comes in with Gendry, says they're retiring to the Stormlands. Their child will be called Sandor.
- King Baelish makes Tyrion hand of the king. Tyrion agrees on the condition that he gets to vacation at the Summer Isles first. He wants to go searching for someone.
- Brienne digs Jaime out of the rubble of the Red Keep. He's barely alive. She places Melisandre's necklace on him. They ride off into the sunset.
- Bronn is Lord of Highgarden. He looks really bored. He jumps on a horse and rides away.
- Sam and Gilly go home. They agree Little Sam will be a great lord one day.
- Davos sails west of Westeros with Salladhor Saan.
- Jon Snow goes north, finds Ghost and gives him a hug. They decide to walk as north as north goes. Tormund is with them. Up north they find the last village of the Children of the Forest. The Children tell them "it's not over".
- Bran comes seeking audience with King Baelish. Staring contest. The camera zooms in closer and closer. Only Bran's face is visible. Suddenly his eyes turn ice-blue. Bran smiles at the camera. He stands up, and starts walking towards Petyr. The ground beneath his feet turns to ice.
- Jaqen arrives at the gates of Storm's End. Knocks. Takes off his face. It's Syrio Forel. He laughs.

Mercurius said:

Regardless of criticism, from the more literary-cinematic to the more fannish outrage at missed expectations and/or questionable elements of the story, GoT remains quite enjoyable in terms of pure entertainment. That last episode was wildly entertaining television.

That said, the episode was hard to watch: the sheer number of deaths, the wanton violence, the gratuitous gore (more so than most other episodes); and yes, the tragedy of seeing one of the main characters complete her transformation into villainy. But it worked - it was effective. I was wowed. But I ended it in a similar mental space as after watching something like Requiem for a Dream, thinking "that was quality cinema, but why do I need to see that? How does that in any way nourish me as a human being except as yet another reminder of how messed up things can get?"

So I'll add another element: What is it in us, culturally and individually, that so relishes this sort of "suffering porn?" I understand that story requires conflict, that story is conflict and overcoming it and that there's always suffering along the way, but GoT has upped to ante and relies quite a bit on suffering for its effectiveness. Its a bit cheap and speaks a lot to our cultural obsession with pathos.

But...can't wait for the series finale.

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It was entertaining, yes. I have some serious criticisms about it, however. Mainly in the fact that the sudden transformation into madness for Danaerys wasn't believable for me. Yes, I know that she has been showing signs of this over the past few episodes, and my criticism is also tempered by the fact that the show-runners are actually limited on the number of episodes and time to show this plot development. The snap into a murderous rage for me just didn't click, though.

Even if Dany gets her just desserts next week it's a bit of a meh. She hasn't been bad long enough to care.

I also had an issue with how Cersei "died." I think it would have been much more satisfying to have one more scene with Jaime and Cersei buried beneath the rubble together, and Jaime reaching over to choke Cersei to death so that she wouldn't have to suffer. It would have fulfilled the Valonquar prophecy, too.