Chris is my name

There appears to be a bottomless trove of incompetence easter eggs laid by D & D: Sam representing the Reach (I suppose because of the Citadel/Oldtown?) even though he skipped out on his training and stole secret texts? And isn't he still bound to the NW anyway? Even worse, moments later they remind us that Bronn is in charge of Highgarden and also Lord Paramount of the Reach! Why wasn't he at the council?? They must take us for absolute fools.

This is the exact reason that the "books done/secret deal with HBO" conspiracy was absolute bollocks. Hopefully everyone can see that now.

I think this could actually be quite powerful if handled correctly which, needless to say, D & D did not.

I guess my expectations were subverted. . . /s

This is the exact same contrivance that was used for Anakin Skywalker in Star Wars EPIII to become Darth Vader: "We've run out of time to properly establish this character as a villain, so let's have him just murder a bunch of children for no reason to make sure the viewers know Vader is irredeemable and don't end up feeling sympathy for him in the overall story."

That is in part true, but regardless of their sire, her children were always her children and never seen as her niece/nephew. . .

Yeah, considering this was one of the main sources of tension and intrigue since the very beginning. . .no.

Yep. . .and how did they know she was a person of value?

No, she was telling Jamie she had been looking forward to Cersei's execution, until now (after receiving news that Dany was ambushed and would likely not succeed.)

At this point I wouldn't put something like this past D & D, but my read of the scene was that he was going to kill her (I think killing your twin sister also qualifies as smashing your redemption arc.) He made the decision directly after learning of Euron's ambush; I think he realized the military effort may be doomed and the only way they will get close enough to Cersei to kill her will be to have someone go in who won't be resisted militarily; him.

I think the events you are thinking of had slightly different implications: Rhaena Targaryen (widow of Maegor the Cruel) married the weakling Androw Farman simply so she could be close to his sister Elissa, who Rhaena allegedly loved. Incidentally it was Elissa Farman who is now widely thought to be the one to bring the dragon eggs to Essos that would ultimately land in the hands of Daenerys at her wedding to Drogo. I think the logic they were actually trying to put forward in the episode was that neither Jon nor Dany have the character to "rule" together: Daenerys strong-willed and uncompromising and Jon deferential and honorable to a fault. I think it's more of a case of 1 + 1= 0 than any prejudice against strong women (the show clearly doesn't have that.)

I have some (very misguided) hope that the ending that GRRM provided has yet to be revealed. It appears to me that the end of the story may (thankfully) render the plot (or lack thereof) of this main story less relevant. And what is potentially being set up involves two semi-tinfoil theories that I believe to still be in play. I think it is very possible that there is indeed a conspiracy from the Citadel to keep magic out of the realms of men. While there has always been terrible internecine conflict on Westeros, the real existential crises have emerged from magical sources (prologue of AGOT, dragons, wildfire, etc.) I think this story will end with magic receding once again (WW are apparently gone, dragons' days appear to be numbered) at the cost of much of the realm. Essentially the history of Westeros will be reset, and magic was the destructive reset button. To complete the reset, I think it is inevitable that the WW/Others will be created again (or were not totally destroyed.) I think their entire purpose is to serve as man's "memento mori," represented in this world as "valar morghulis" and "winter is coming." And, in the show, this memento was created by the children of the forest; and while they are all gone, let's not forget their main ally is still alive: Bran/3ER. He may be, right now, testing the world of men to see what they do when the specter of death is not hanging over their existence; it looks to me like they will fail that test. Whether or not Jon is the new NK is potentially part of this scenario as well(IMO it could go either way.) If this were to be borne out, its logic was in front of us at the beginning of each episode in the metaphor of the astrolabe. All this being said, I don't have my hopes up because D & D seem to really struggle with the basic concepts of this story (Gendry Rivers? Really?) but hopefully the final quality will come from what GRRM gave them. Unfortunately I am not holding my breath.

It sounded on my first (and only) viewing to be a drawn out and orchestrated version of the piano theme that played during the Night King's slow walk to irrelevance.