LHakaLH

I can't take people being stabbed seriously on this show. Dany and Hotah are insta-dead with one stab. Arya took a bunch to the stomach, fell into a rank river, and was healthy and active the next day, Jaime gets a sword though his stomach and is still talking and manages to make it to Cersei. Incidentally, I find it also hilarious how Evil Dany is meant to be taken seriously. In a show that has framed vengeance and vindictiveness as heroic actions throughout. We're all worried about Dany! But no one seems disturbed by Arya exterminating House Frey, or Sansa feeding Ramsay to his hounds, or Jon hanging Olly, or Tyrion arming the hill tribes to torment the smallfolk of the Vale, or Cersei blowing up the Sept and killing hundreds. Yeesh. I'm glad it's over. The embarrassment of it all is finally done.

I've been trying to craft a response to this episode for two days, to give it at least something of a fair shake, but I just can't. There have been individual moments on GoT more unpleasant than this (Sansa's rape, for example) but as whole episodes go, this was probably just about as unwatchable as the show gets. Previous bad episodes were at least bad in interesting ways. D&D have a penchant for almost getting the point, but being off by just enough that if nothing else, how they screwed it up makes for interesting discussion. Not here. The episode itself can be summarized in one sentence: Dany burns down Kings Landing. The scorpions introduced a season ago did nothing to stop it, despite being teased as something that might even the odds. The Sellsword Company ex Machina, I mean the Golden Company, were introduced so that they could be roasted by dragon fire. Euron gets his fleet burned and loses a sword fight with a man missing his sword hand. The oh so hyped fight between the Clegane brothers came about in the most contrived fashion and it was really hard to get invested in the outcome. Did Sandor ever mention hating his brother before this episode? Certainly not for several seasons. Whatever was left of Jaime Lannister died when he said that he never actually cared about the people of King's Landing. Those would be the same people he sacrificed his reputation to save. Was this tragic irony or simply bad writing? Whatever, our favourite twincests get to die in each other's arms. Arya's plot armour has reached anime levels; it's ridiculous. I still have no idea what the point of the bells that gave this episode it's title was supposed to be. At first, ringing them to signal surrender seemed like something Tyrion had just thought up: he tells Dany to listen for them and then he tells Jaime to have them rung. But then, we have random people calling for the bells to ring, like it's a common signal for surrender. If this were the case though, why would Tyrion need to tell people what they meant? The most likely explanation is that it was supposed to be a recognized signal of surrender, but this was never actually established before in either books or show, so they had to go extra heavy on the foreshadowing. Also, does anybody know what Meera Reed, Yara Greyjoy, Edmure Tully, Quaithe, Daario Naharis, Illyrio Mopathis, Jaquen H'Ghar, Robert Arryn, The Hill Tribes of the Vale, Kinvara, Salladhor Saan and Ilyn Payne are up to?

Cause she forgot.

The Game of Thrones Book Snob Glossary

No way. He wouldn’t need to proclaim he was evil to Brienne to do that. If he needed to not be honest with Brienne (for whatever reason), he could have just said he needed to reason with his sister or save his sister even though she didn’t deserve it etc., still making Jaime heroic and a good man. This is purposeful. This is Jaime’s endgame in the show, I guess. Evil alongside his twin until the end.

Everything feels so contrived: Deadpan's impending madness, Sansa's "schemes", The spike launchers having 360 no scope aim, Cheryl suddenly being an unbeatable force (Lena Headey looked damn good in that darth vader robe, tho). None of this plot makes sense or fits the characters. The entire point of WW was to be an apocalyptic threat that would show the folly of human bickering and war and now they're not only immediately dealt with, but completely forgotten. This entire season has been one big simultaneous "Fuck you" to George RR Martin and A Song of Ice and Fire

Ah, but the real story is political. The whole business with the White Walkers was a distraction from what is really important: Who Will Win The iron Throne? And according to D&D (and lots of other shitty writers), only those who have no interest in ruling make good rulers. Ergo, Jon is the Perfect King (or Arya, judging by how things are going). /sarcasm (in case it wasn't obvious)

Jon's parentage went hilariously nowhere. I have no idea why it was so important for Bran to tell him before the battle - or at all - if it had absolutely nothing to do with defeating the White Walkers. He rode a dragon perfectly without knowing it and no one had a second thought about his skills. So why even bother when it turns out that his Targness is only important for politics, and Jon has no interest in politics or ruling whatsoever? God, how could they have gotten it so backwards?

To say this episode is bad would be the understatement of the ceuntry. This episode is beyond bad; it is incoherent, incomprehensible, and batshit insane: Who in the right mind would make those decisions, let alone combining then together in one single episode? The most glaring problem is of course the writers completely miss the point and central theme of the book, that human earthly ambitions or political quibbles are nothing comparing to the whims of nature. The Others are exactly that: a force of nature. It cannot be bargained with. At best you can only build a dam or a wall to limit its destructive potential when nature has entered into a more docile cycle. Even then you can only live with it and be on alert. Bruce Lee's little sister just outright assassinated nature. And going by their interview, it was an intentional choice. How could they completely miss such obvious point of the story? I believe the best explanation is malice. This is the writers saying they don't care what the audience think. All they wanted to do is to shock you, or going by industry's jargon, subverting expectation. They intentionally trade logical and coherent storytelling for shock effect, and do it without the slightness shred of care and in such a hamfisted way. It is like they are saying to the audience "you didn't like our previous decision, like Sandra getting raped for no reason? How do you take it now?" Then they proceeded to rip the whole story apart at the seam. We have underestimated D&D. They aren't just hacks; they are malicious hacks, trolling our love of the original story and good storytelling. Next episode, Arya ninja-stabs Euron. The episode after that, she single handedly kills Gregor while wearing Sandor's face because we cannot not have 'cleganebowl' (Fan service y'all!), valonqars Cersei In the finale, solves global warming, invents the printing press and brings the industrial revolution to Westeros And everyone claps. It's quite apt that my GoT discussion group with friends is now called "The Long Shite"