Game of Thrones - And Now Our Watch Has Ended!

[DC Tom]

17 minutes ago, /dev/null said:

 

Just a guess, but Varys removed his signet ring

 

For those unfamiliar with the concept, a signet ring is a ring with a personalized emblem/seal.  In the days before email and Twitter, people wrote letters to one another.  To verify a letter has not been read by anyone but the intended recipient, the sender would pour a wax seal over the folds.  If the seal was broken the letter had been intercepted and read by another.  Before the wax solidified the author would place their signet ring in the hot wax, making an impression that serves as a signature.  So when the recipient gets the letter they know who it was from.

 

So by leaving his signet ring for Tyrion to find, Varys has given Tyrion cover to send ravens announcing the true lineage of Jon Snow.  Anyone who receives the message will think the message came from Varys.  When Dany learns of the ravens, she cannot link the letters back to Tyrion

 

The sort of thing that would make an excellent story arc if there were more than one episode left. 

1 hour ago, Awwufelloff said:

 

There are even more examples, she talks about the entire duration of the show. It's subtle but it's definitely there. No clue how everyone had an issue with the last episode, it was fantastic.

 

Because character definition and foreshadowing are not character development.

 

Just because Dany's turn was foreordained, doesn't excuse not exploring the turn.  It's lazy, hack writing.

[GoBills808]

1 hour ago, /dev/null said:

 

So you want Game of Thrones to end like Blackadder?

 

I'm talking All Quiet on the Western Front style level10 misery and despair. End boss death/desolation and just let the peons inherit the earth. These inbred ruling families always ruin everything anyway.

 

 

[eball]

1 hour ago, DC Tom said:

 

Just because Dany's turn was foreordained, doesn't excuse not exploring the turn.  It's lazy, hack writing.

 

 

I’m not defending the show but what more was there to “explore?” As I noted above we systematically watched everyone close to Dany - those who tried to suppress her violent tendencies - fall by the wayside, one by one. 

 

I feel like I have a pretty good understanding of why she “turned” and didn’t need further explanation. I believe if Jon had acquiesced to a romantic relationship that was the only chance to avoid what happened. 

[SlimShady'sSpaceForce]

Harry Stricklands horse 

 

 

Or 

Revelation in the Bible:

"I looked, and there before me was a pale horse! Its rider was named Death, and Hades was following close behind him."

[Bad Things]

On 5/14/2019 at 5:48 AM, GoBills808 said:

From Twitter: apparently a bunch of people who named their daughter either Daenerys or Khaleesi in the last odd-decade are freaking out?

I work with a guy that named his daughter Arya a couple years ago. 

I wonder if anyone out there has named their baby Hodor?

 

[SDS]

2 hours ago, DC Tom said:

 

The sort of thing that would make an excellent story arc if there were more than one episode left. 

 

Because character definition and foreshadowing are not character development.

 

Just because Dany's turn was foreordained, doesn't excuse not exploring the turn.  It's lazy, hack writing.

 

Shouldn’t you blame Martin for this? Afterall, it seems you are asking the showrunners to be as skilled as telling the story as Martin. 

 

They are wrapping things sooner than would be ideal, but maybe these people want to get on with their lives.

 

If they made four more episodes, we would probably have had to wait another 5 months to even begin the season. 8 or 9 months if you wanted 10 from season 7. 

[mrags]

I’m not really sure why everyone is linking the white horse with death. It’s not. The white horse is conquest, victory or pestilence. 

 

The PALE horse is death and is considered green, greenish-yellow in color. 

 

Besides, just stop. They don’t mean anything in this show. It simply shows a peaceful white horse in a situation of great destruction around it. Arya sees that horse as her transformation from assassin/killer to peaceful and done with her ways. She has ridden off. Most likely you will see her be at ease. Her list has been completed either by her or someone else. I wouldn’t be shocked to see her end up with Gendry and change her “that’s not me” thoughts. 

 

Either way, we’ll all find out in 5 days. Many will be upset it hasn’t ended the way they have envisioned it. Many will be pleased with the way it ended. 

 

I like most here believe the final season has been rushed. I think they are covering all the bases and will leave no open storylines. But I do feel they could have added another 2 episodes or more to complete this season. Even though they have been slowly moving Dani from good to mad, they took that arc extremely slowly through 7 seasons and then all the sudden this season she has been mostly mad the whole tome. From the moments she arrived in Winterfell she was standoffish towards everyone. From the moment she found out from Jon Snow that he is the rightful heir, she has been trying to silence him while positioning herself to take what she believes is hers. 

6 minutes ago, Bad Things said:

I work with a guy that named his daughter Arya a couple years ago. 

I wonder if anyone out there has named their baby Hodor?

 

People have been pissed they named their kid Danirys or Khalissi

[Rockpile233]

Martin pushed back on the rumor he had all the books finished. Said he is still finishing WOW and hasn’t even started dream of summer. I didn’t believe this for a second anyway for the financial reasons already mentioned in this thread.

 

I’ve resigned myself to the fact he won’t ever finish. If he does it will be a pleasant surprise. 

[DC Tom]

1 hour ago, eball said:

 

I’m not defending the show but what more was there to “explore?”

 

How she turned.  Showing, through the character's actions and dialog not just why she turns, but the psychological process of how she goes from someone who locks up her "children" because they killed a child to someone who uses her surviving "child" to roast children. 

 

Character development is far more than a bullet list of the events of a character's life, but the interplay of those events on the psychology of the character and how it develops.  It's the difference between "Walter White is a mild-mannered chemistry teacher who builds a meth empire" and "Walter White evolves from Mr. Chips to Scarface."

[Cripple Creek]

5 minutes ago, mrags said:

I’m not really sure why everyone is linking the white horse with death. It’s not. The white horse is conquest, victory or pestilence. 

 

The PALE horse is death and is considered green, greenish-yellow in color. 

 

Besides, just stop. They don’t mean anything in this show. It simply shows a peaceful white horse in a situation of great destruction around it. Arya sees that horse as her transformation from assassin/killer to peaceful and done with her ways. She has ridden off. Most likely you will see her be at ease. Her list has been completed either by her or someone else. I wouldn’t be shocked to see her end up with Gendry and change her “that’s not me” thoughts. 

 

Either way, we’ll all find out in 5 days. Many will be upset it hasn’t ended the way they have envisioned it. Many will be pleased with the way it ended. 

 

I like most here believe the final season has been rushed. I think they are covering all the bases and will leave no open storylines. But I do feel they could have added another 2 episodes or more to complete this season. Even though they have been slowly moving Dani from good to mad, they took that arc extremely slowly through 7 seasons and then all the sudden this season she has been mostly mad the whole tome. From the moments she arrived in Winterfell she was standoffish towards everyone. From the moment she found out from Jon Snow that he is the rightful heir, she has been trying to silence him while positioning herself to take what she believes is hers. 

 

I do hope you stay.

[mrags]

3 minutes ago, Cripple Creek said:

I do hope you stay.

Lucky You 

[DC Tom]

7 minutes ago, SDS said:

 

Shouldn’t you blame Martin for this? Afterall, it seems you are asking the showrunners to be as skilled as telling the story as Martin. 

 

They are wrapping things sooner than would be ideal, but maybe these people want to get on with their lives.

 

If they made four more episodes, we would probably have had to wait another 5 months to even begin the season. 8 or 9 months if you wanted 10 from season 7. 

 

I blame lots of people, including Martin.  Mostly, though, whichever bean-counters decided to end with a truncated final two seasons.  It's lazy writing, but the single biggest contributing factor is probably the need to truncate the story to fit the schedule.

[eball]

39 minutes ago, DC Tom said:

 

How she turned.  Showing, through the character's actions and dialog not just why she turns, but the psychological process of how she goes from someone who locks up her "children" because they killed a child to someone who uses her surviving "child" to roast children. 

 

Character development is far more than a bullet list of the events of a character's life, but the interplay of those events on the psychology of the character and how it develops.  It's the difference between "Walter White is a mild-mannered chemistry teacher who builds a meth empire" and "Walter White evolves from Mr. Chips to Scarface."

 

Fair enough, I suppose, but I saw the how. I saw Dany evolve through her actions and reactions to what happened around her. If anyone who watches the show religiously didn’t think the burning of King’s Landing was more likely than not I’m surprised. 

[ComradeKayAdams]

4 hours ago, John from Riverside said:

Perhaps you think that conquerer's of a time such as when Game of Thrones should be nice political types.

 

She did some bad *****.....she also showed a heart along the way.   I would follow her because she is not weak sauce (although i might give her a funny look if I was a Dothroaki charging into the enormous army of the undead)

 

Slavers should be slaughtered

 

Examples were made by crucificition rememeber she is changing the tone and didnt want slavers coming up behind her changing what she fixed

 

Her listening to her hand at times caused more problems then it solved

 

I really think that burning kings landing was NOT the plan all along....I think she was prodded into it by a cumulation of things.

 

 

 

That's just it: Dany has now shown to be no different than any of the other horrible sociopathic rulers that the Game of Thrones universe has ever known. Important characters in the series initially joined her cause because they thought she was a revolutionary who would usher in a new and unusual era of moral leadership. She could have easily ended the war by simply taking out Cersei at the Red Keep as soon as all the scorpions were demolished. But as she herself told Jon Snow on Sunday, she chose to rule in Westeros by "fear." This isn't some gray ethical situation here that we can all debate academically like a bunch of online neckbeards. Dany didn't just decide to bomb Hiroshima and Nagasaki to display strength to the Russians; she proceeded to take out Tokyo and every other major industrial city of Japan after Hirohito surrendered. The problems with this strategy are that you end up creating a lot of extra enemies that could have otherwise been avoided (all of her advisors, practically everyone from Westeros, Jon Snow) and that your hold on power is only as secure as your actual strength (1 dragon left, remaining Dothraki, remaining Unsullied). Dany is going to lose the "game of thrones" this Sunday because she played a very poor strategy in the end. Being merciful isn't synonymous with being weak.

[snafu]

2 hours ago, mrags said:

People have been pissed they named their kid Danirys or Khalissi

 

According to many here, they should have seen it coming.

2 hours ago, DC Tom said:

 

I blame lots of people, including Martin.  Mostly, though, whichever bean-counters decided to end with a truncated final two seasons.  It's lazy writing, but the single biggest contributing factor is probably the need to truncate the story to fit the schedule.

 

And their desire to devote nearly entire episodes to CGI battles when the preceding 7 seasons were made with dialogue and character development. 

[GoBills808]

3 hours ago, eball said:

 

Fair enough, I suppose, but I saw the how. I saw Dany evolve through her actions and reactions to what happened around her. If anyone who watches the show religiously didn’t think the burning of King’s Landing was more likely than not I’m surprised. 

 

I guess the difference for me is in the past whenever a big moment or reveal took place in GoT, no matter how outrageous or seemingly out of nowhere, I always understood (even if only viscerally at first) there existed a well defined, though often deliberately subtle, logical series of preceding events and I took a lot of comfort in that. It usually means the writers respect their audience's intelligence, and when a show has that kind of relationship with its viewers you get a huge following. That's why there are a lot of disappointed people, myself included, because they went away from that in the interest of TV politics (time&money). There's no reciprocity anymore. You can't craft an intricate universe complete w/ top production quality and fantastic writing that appeals to viewers' intellects and then go for a half-hearted wrap up season where every episode might as well be titled Tying Up Loose Ends. They punted, understandably so but for me it's been pretty painful watching tbh.

 

It's a reminder why I'm so ambivalent about the entertainment industry. They create some amazing stuff but when they get cynical it's nuclear (GoT last season, Hangovers 2/3, True Detective Season 2, Anchorman2 etc)

[Doc Brown]

4 hours ago, eball said:

 

Fair enough, I suppose, but I saw the how. I saw Dany evolve through her actions and reactions to what happened around her. If anyone who watches the show religiously didn’t think the burning of King’s Landing was more likely than not I’m surprised. 

It wasn't surprising because of how hard they pushed the she's going mad narrative this season without any convincing evidence from previous seasons.  Taking pleasure in being sadistic to people that wronged you isn't proof that she would suddenly kill thousands of innocent people.  You either effectively show her slowly descending into madness or you make her killing innocent people to take the Iron Throne her only option believing it would be for the good of the realm in the long run.  D&D blew it by rushing it.  It's a shame because it would've been one of the all time great character arcs.  I expect the books to be more convincing.  

 

Edited May 15, 2019 by Doc Brown

[Nanker]

Three and a half Starks remaining - Sansa, Arya, Bran, and Jon. 

One and a half Targarians remaining - Dany, and Jon. 

One Lannister remains - Tyrion. 

 

Will the last Lannister pay the family’s debt to the Iron Bank of Bravos?

[Doc Brown]

2 hours ago, Nanker said:

Three and a half Starks remaining - Sansa, Arya, Bran, and Jon. 

One and a half Targarians remaining - Dany, and Jon. 

One Lannister remains - Tyrion. 

 

Will the last Lannister pay the family’s debt to the Iron Bank of Bravos?

Tyrion will pry die and Bronn will somehow get stuck with it.  "This f****** family."

[Doc Brown]

9 hours ago, MichaelAbdallah said:

 

That's just it: Dany has now shown to be no different than any of the other horrible sociopathic rulers that the Game of Thrones universe has ever known. Important characters in the series initially joined her cause because they thought she was a revolutionary who would usher in a new and unusual era of moral leadership. She could have easily ended the war by simply taking out Cersei at the Red Keep as soon as all the scorpions were demolished. But as she herself told Jon Snow on Sunday, she chose to rule in Westeros by "fear." This isn't some gray ethical situation here that we can all debate academically like a bunch of online neckbeards. Dany didn't just decide to bomb Hiroshima and Nagasaki to display strength to the Russians; she proceeded to take out Tokyo and every other major industrial city of Japan after Hirohito surrendered. The problems with this strategy are that you end up creating a lot of extra enemies that could have otherwise been avoided (all of her advisors, practically everyone from Westeros, Jon Snow) and that your hold on power is only as secure as your actual strength (1 dragon left, remaining Dothraki, remaining Unsullied). Dany is going to lose the "game of thrones" this Sunday because she played a very poor strategy in the end. Being merciful isn't synonymous with being weak.

I also wonder if the letters Varys wrote before he executed made it to Dorne, the Vale, Storm's End (if Gendry's there), or Highgarden (if Bronn's there).  Dany burning the city to ashes and the knowledge that Jon being the legitimate heir to the thrown does create a lot of enemies for Dany.