[Spoilers] Rant & Rave without Repercussion, Final edition

[Ser Lepus]

6 minutes ago, OtherGlover said:

See I was actually hopeful for that outcome when Drogon melted the Iron Throne. To me it was the most logical conclusion (for the show story line). Its funny Dany talks about breaking the wheel and yet her family was one of the biggest "wheels" in Westeros. The Targs came in crushed all the kingdoms into submission. Two ruling families were wiped out and a third, the Durrandons, were destroyed in the male line. King Durrandon's daughter was forced to marry a Targ bastard and their words and sigil co-opted by this Baratheon. 

The Targ rule brought with it 300 years of war and submission. Now I'm not saying that everything was perfect for the 1000s of years before Targ rule. However, from what little history we do know, the North was largely stabilized behind Stark rule. The Vale and Dorne lived behind natural barriers. The Reach was rich and flourishing with perhaps the oldest line of kings on the continent. Yes there were border wars (North and Vale over the Sisters, Stormlands and Reach over the Marches) and someone would have to do something about the Hoares eventually, but the realms had integrated new cultures (Andal invasion, Rhoynar migration) and religions (The Seven) and for the most part appears stable at the time of Aegon's landing. Without their Targ overlords and their dragons why shouldn't these Kingdoms revert to their previous state.

Especially because Aegon and his descendants did little to harbor any sense of national unity. Borders remained the same, regional cultures and religions unchanged. Northmen were Northmen and Dornishmen were Dornishmen. They weren't Seven Kingdomers or Iron Throners. Ned, who was raised in the Eyrie sees himself as strictly northern and his own children appear to have never made it much further south than White Harbor. The Iron Islanders with their thralls have a form a slavery that is strictly forbidden throughout the rest of the kingdom.

So when the show arrived at this election scene I was shocked that nobody thought to bring up that maybe they didn't need an all-powerful supreme overlord. Especially one who had absolutely no claim and who's first act as supreme overlord was to grant his sisters kingdom independence. They suggested democracy (an admirable idea but still several major scientific breakthroughs away from being a serious option), but failed to realize what is sitting right in front of them. What even Drogon saw, that without the Targs there is no need for the Seven Kingdoms or the Iron Throne.

The crownlands could have been absorbed into the River and Stormlands. While treatise could have been signed and I actually think an independent Kings Landing with a council made up of nobles from the different realms, maesters, and septons helping to adjudicate disputes between the Kingdoms would be much more plausible then what we got. Hell, it's also surprising that D&D passed on the opportunity to make Bronn King of the Reach not just LP.         

Actually, if you read the World of Ice and Fire, before the Targaryen conquest the Crownlands were divided into many petty kingdoms in perpetual state of war among each other. The Northmen and the Valemen raided each other constantly; the Northmen ravaged the The Three Sisters, raped the women and sacrificed the men to the Old Gods, hanging their guts from the trees, and the Vale answered in kind, attacking and conquering White Harbor.

The Ironborn had conquered the Riverlands, and were at war with the Stormlands and The Westerlands. The Dornish raided both the Stormlands and the Reach.

And then you have the wars within each of the Seven Kingdoms: Yronwoods vs Martells, Brackens vs Blackwoods, Boltons vs Starks...etc.

The Targaryen were no saints, but the Westeros before them was a land in a state of constant war...

[Knight of Ashes]

It's finally over; and my biggest regret is that I didn't stop watching a couple of seasons ago.

[Nami]

The last episode has a 4.5 score on IMDB 

and all others went down even further

[ohiostate124]

Here’s hoping Jon finds Val among the wildlings

[Nightwish]

20 minutes ago, Nami said:

The last episode has a 4.5 score on IMDB 

and all others went down even further

That's still very high.

[One-Eyed Raven]

Not sure if this qualifies as a rant because I kind of like it, given where we've ended up.

Have we given any thought to how our new three-eyed overlord enforces his rule when the honeymoon is over? I hope it's scary warging tricks.

Mouth off in front of the court? Maybe Bran wargs you and you run around with your pants around your ankles shouting "Bran is the man! All hail Bran! Bran has a great haircut!"

Options for escalation should be obvious and terrifying and might involve a bear taking a shit on someone in their bed. Hopefully it doesn't come to that.

[divica]

Have you guys realized that the starks also fucked jon?

If bran can see the future and decided that jon needed to know his parentage at the moment he did then he planed everything.

Sansa betrayed jon and started the chain of events that led to jon killing danny and being exiled.

It is an awful thought! The 2 starks ploted and ended up as king/queen and jon exiled...

[UnViserion]

The show turned Jon into such a wuss. 

[Stubby]

[MOD]

Folks, once again, it needs to be remembered that this thread is not for arguments, debate about others' opinions or criticising other posters' opinions.

That's what the "without repercussions part is all about.

Please do not derail the thread without with such comments.

[/MOD]

[aquintus]

26 minutes ago, divica said:

Sansa betrayed jon and started the chain of events that led to jon killing danny and being exiled.

I love how Sansa has basically the same motivations at the end as Dany, with both desperately coveting a throne, but the story turns Dany into an evil Hitler-eque monster while Sansa is presented as justified (despite actively working against Jon). 

[Nami]

If any kingdom deserved to be independent it should have been Dorne.

[House Cambodia]

1 minute ago, Nami said:

If any kingdom deserved to be independent it should have been Dorne.

I think it would have made more sense for the new prince of Dorne and especially Yara (who'd already been granted independence by Dany) to make their claims, but that doesn't take anything away from the North.

[Rose of Red Lake]

nevermind

[Rose of Red Lake]

nevermind

[Beardy the Wildling]

All right, so as promised, I’m going to write a rant covering the gist of Season 8, with snarky remarks, nitpicks, honest-to-god frustration, and hopefully an enjoyable ranting style, just like I did last season.

Let’s start by making one thing clear; despite the utter clusterfuckery of this season, I actually preferred this season to last season. I think it was due to it being a trainwreck that more and more people were picking up on, instead of feeling like I was either the only sane man in the room or utterly insane for disliking the ratings and viewership juggernaut that is Gammy Trons.

This time, there were people along for the party. My brother, as smart as me but considerably chiller and less opinionated on writing than me (because he actually focused on his studies instead of writing and roleplaying through university, like a normal, productive person), was happy to shrug off Season 7. He was like, ‘yeah, it’s obviously rushed, but what are you gonna do, there’s still payoffs and spectacle. It’s decent popcorn viewing, even if it’s not as good as the old seasons’.

Now? He and I are texting between each other after every episode, me knowing the leaks, him going in blind, and together we witness his goodwill for the show slowly sapping away. Today, my old uni friend, an adamant supporter of the show, texted me in excitement, asking for my ranty verdict now it was over, instead of simply agreeing to disagree like before. We even got to trade some sarcastic honeypots with each other. It’s so good to see the world finally catch up. In addition, there were several scenes that were perfectly competent right until D&D explained them, making a fine case for Death of the Author (the postmodern concept, not lynching D&D, though now I have an idea…)

With that being said, let’s have a sarcastic recap, followed by my overall thoughts. Instead of character arc by character arc, because each episode pretty much stays with one group, I’m going to go episode by episode. So, let’s go through the contents!

1: Winter fell on basic internal logic

2: A Knight of the soon-to-be-six kingdoms

3: The Short Night

4: The Last of the Warnings

5: The Bell that tolls for D&D’s reputation

6: The Dragon-angering Spiky Chair

I’ll go through the episodes one by one, arduous and angry as always. Occasionally you may see me maliciously misname characters. Don’t worry, that’s just to differentiate them from their similarly-named book counterparts so as not to taint them. Without further ado, here’s the episodes, one through six!

Episode One: Season One references are cool, please ignore us while we fuck over the worldbuilding and spit on perfectly logical questions.

So the episode starts with, what else, a season one reference. Whenever D&D want to have a wank, they need a season one reference. D&D should keep their pants on, however, as they completely fuck over the world’s internal logic while executing it. The worst part is, it’s entirely unnecessary, but it’s just a symptom of the generally lazy relationship the showrunners have with the world. It starts with forgivable shit like forgetting to have letter-writers use sand to quick-dry their ink before rolling them up, then it culminates in shit like this.

What do I mean? Well, the opening scene is clearly meant to ape the season one scene in which Bobby B, arguably the best king Weisseroff has ever had considering all the crazy bullshit in the series, first visited Winterfell. Bran and Arya are excited and rushing to see the King’s entourage march in, once they do, everyone, from nobility to fucking Hodor, knows to kneel, and you get an air for Bobby B’s authority and X factor.

Now, let’s see season eight’s scene; first off, the boy is excited to see Crazy Dany’s army when, unlike those sweet summer children that were Arya and Bran, this boy has seen nothing but fucking war. An army just means more cruelty and bullshit to survive to this kid. But let’s say he’s a Pollyanna, say he’s crazy as a loon, he believes in second chances, and that’s why he believes in you Daenerys, this is juxtaposed with Maisie Williams (as Sociopathic Woverine) smirking as per usual, this time implied to be in nostalgia.

Are we supposed to nod with her. Say, ‘boy, those were the days, I really empathise with her’. I have a hard time believing Sociopathic Wolverine has the capacity to empathise with this boy after she threatened to flay her sister’s face last season. If you’ll remember, fans insisted over and over that the Sansarya feud last season was all a game to give Batfinger le tricks, except D&D and Bran’s actor all claimed that they were prepared to kill each other until Dr Branhattan informed them of the situation off-screen.

Of course, it was off-screen because DRAMATIC SATISFACTION™, because things are only good if you never see it coming (oh boy, I love being subverted!), but the fact remains that Wolverine is not a person we should be nodding with. We should be mourning for the little girl that died and got replaced. Finally, and this is perhaps most egregious given they were intending to ape Bobby B’s arrival:

NO-ONE FUCKING KNEELS FOR EITHER THE FORMER KING IN THE NORTH OR THE MONARCH HE KNELT TO AS SHE MARCHES WITH A HUGE ENTOURAGE.

In season one, Hodor remembers to kneel to a monarch. In season eight, even Maester Walken completely forgets. I’d love to say this is expert foreshadowing of how idiotic everyone will become, but oh, sweet summer child, they’ve been this moronic since the days of the Bad Poosy and the Arbitrary Daughter-burning of Character Assassination.

Then we get another thing D&D loves to fuck up: Fanservice! They seem to treat character reunions in themselves as fanservice, and so each Stark reunion gets its own little scene. The Jonbot 9000 and Sandra had their reunion in Season 6, Rickon (not to be confused with Rickon Tarly, Sam’s older brother) died in Jonbot’s arms, and now we get Jonbot meeting with Dr Branhattan, and because the writers have stripped both of them of all credible emotion, we get a conversation similar to this:

Jonbot: Oh Gods, Bran, you’re alive!

Branhattan: Cryptic stoner shit.

Jonbot: I don’t want it.

Branhattan: Cryptic stoner shit.

Jonbot: You are my queen.

Sandra: Yeah, don’t bother with Bran, he stopped me from murdering my sociopathic sister last season, but he’s pretending to be a bird now, or some shit.

Branhattan: Three eyed ravens are cool.

Jonbot: Speaking of sociopathic sisters, how’s Arya?

Sandra: Lurking.

After that, Jonbot goes to introduce the girlfriend to the weirdly romantic sister he has in Sandra (don’t worry, we’ll get back to my theories on at least one of the Ds having a serious thing for incest that overrides pretty much every storyline), and because they’re both feminine women who don’t pretend to be male action heroes, they of course hate each other and act passive-aggressive almost immediately.

Suddenly, Branhattan breaks in to tell them to stop their silly wimmin bickering and focus; he has some exposition. The wall has fallen, there’s an undead dragon courtesy of the meme dream team’s quest for chicken across the wall (which, I should note, was Terry ‘Smartest Man in Weisseroff’ Lannister’s idea). Crazy Dany gets a chance to show emotion (credit where it is due, Emilia Clarke actually got to act this season) and acts appropriately horrified.

Moving on, it’s time for token politics! D&D kinda forgot how to write political intrigue and problem-solving, so instead, we just get a set of idiots speaking in a room, telling us what’s going to happen next. Ned Umber asks for men and horses to go and evacuate Last Hearth, which is granted. There are two dragons here, mind you, and there’s an undead army that never sleeps rushing towards a city full of people. Time is of the essence, but of course, Crazy Dany couldn’t loan a dragon to this cause. She needs them for more important things.

BUT HARK! Sandra is about to be a total bitch by asking basic logistical questions! ‘How will you feed your army when our stockpiles only cover our own people for a years-long winter?’ and ‘Why would staunchly pro-independence lords remotely respect Jonbot’s decision to kneel to literally nobody’s benefit given Crazy Dany was already willing to help?’, and quite incisively, ‘What the fuck will the two full-grown dragons eat?’

Crazy Dany just spouts a t-shirt slogan, ‘whatever they want’, and because the logistics are lampshaded, that’s it, we don’t have to think about it. My (obviously way too crediting) honeypot, that would at least make Crazy Dany be… well, feasibly crazy, is that in that magical world of offscreen where literally every explanation ever exists if showpologists are to be believed, Dany’s dragons are toasting and eating people.

It’s win-win-win. They’re one less potential thrall of the White Walkers, one less mouth to feed, and one more delicious nom for the dragons. Of course, it’s monstrous, capricious, and Machiavellian, but if this actually happened, and Crazy Dany’s line wasn’t just some dumb throwaway for a mug slogan or something, then maybe her later… decisions would make a tad more sense. A tad. My decision here is still nonsensical, just not quite as nonsensical as ‘we mentioned the food problem, so now it’s solved’.

After that, it’s time for fanservice Stark reunion #2 of the day, Sociopathic Wolverine and Jonbot 9000. D&D tell Maisie Williams it’s fine to act like a normal fucking person, and so continuity is fucked once again. Do these people forget that this person made people into pies. She flayed people’s fucking faces. She threatened to do the same to her sister. And she isn’t softening with exposure to family; she not only randomly abandons her family without a goodbye twice more before the season’s end, she also spends a council meeting threatening to kill practically everyone.

Still, it’s a shame to see Maisie Williams waste good acting talent on a fucking invincible, smirking, character-inconsistent mess when she absolutely kills her evasive lines about her use of needle, but then reverts back to cold and sociopathic when Jonbot complains that Sandra doesn’t like the fucking girlfriend.

Jonbot, not sure if you know, but the one thing the northern lords have been consistent on through the last two seasons has been a desire for independence. Perhaps Sandra is kind of right to relay her concerns about your boneheaded kneeling decision. Thankfully Wolverine is on my side, albeit in an incredibly hyperbolic way; Sandra is apparently the smartest person she knows. Sorry, still doesn’t make up for the flay threats.

Gods, there’s so much wrong here, this is going on forever, and this is one of the better episodes. Jesus wept.

After that, Saint Terry the Incredibly Intelligent, Never-Wrong Hand of the Queen (shortened to St Terry for concision) has another incredible reunion with Sandra, apparently still convinced the Lannister army is coming. Oh Terry. You sent a meme team and a dragon to their deaths (well, largely deaths of redshirts, but still) and (perhaps, depending on teleporter efficiency) wasted resources showing a conveniently-still-moving zombie to your crazy sister, the sister who’s tried to kill you multiple times, and you actually think it’s going to pay off.

It’s a good thing D&D keep insisting he’s smart, or I would be having doubts about the presence of this man’s frontal lobe.

After that, it’s time to skip over to the bad guys’ lair grey antagonists’ scenes, where Qyburn Frankenstein, using his latest anachronistic invention, the camera drone, has somehow figured out the wall has broken and the Army of the Dead is invading the North. Queen Karen goes full CDi Zelda and says ‘good’ (while in my head, a suspiciously ginger Bobby B ghost goes OAHOHOHOHOHOHUHAHA in the background).

Meanwhile, Urine Greyjoy is seen pissing around with Yara, but it’s not all for shits and gigs. You see, even though Theon will teleport onto the Loudness in five minutes and rescue Yara, evicting her from the series until the finale, this scene is not, as you plebeians might think, completely pointless in a six-episode season when time is of the essence. You see, Urine is actually using this time to extract Yara’s secret sauce; she’s incredibly competent at everything, but only weak to shirtless men and dogs.

Knowing that he won’t be coming across dogs on the sea, Urine intends to harness her power to become more than Urine. Following this incredible scene, Urine is no longer, and he instead becomes xxxEuron420Noscoper69xxx.

After that, Euron420Noscoper delivers some overpaid extra who apparently has some big company or something to Karen. For some reason, they’re really built up. It’d be a shame if they were effortlessly steamrolled or something.

Then, because D&D need to inject some tits into the tits&dragons formula, Bronn is seen in the presence of six tits. Qyburn Frankenstein, cockblock extraordinaire, materialises in the room hands him a SUPAR SIGNIFICANT CROSSBOW. It’d be a shame if this amounted to nothing.

Back in Winterfell, Davos is returning to what his Season 7 self did best; be a chipper, wisecracking bro in the face of everything he ever fought for being long dead and informing the audience that despite their non-existent chemistry, Crazy Dany and Jonbot love each other. He proposes a proposal, which in Westeros would prompt remarks such as ‘what the fuck is a Lommy proposal’, but in Weisseroff, where everyone knows what the audience does, just makes people nod and say ‘yes, that sounds like a fairytale ending to subvert’.

Crazy Dany then takes Jonbot aside and cries that Sandra doesn’t like her. Oh, I can’t imagine why that would be, Dany. Maybe the callous indifference to being a complete and utter drain on their winter supplies and implying your dragons will kill anything with impunity you gormless fucking cow?

Well, it doesn’t matter, because Jonbot has a few of his preset dialogue options ready; ‘you are my queen’, and ‘I love you’, coming soon as part of a Jon Snow talking action figure. This makes Crazy Dany so happy that she decides to spare her precious fucking dragons to go on a romantic flight while Last Hearth gets fucking mauled to death by vicious undead. Joy.

After that, it’s time for another fucking reunion, Sam and Jon. Sam still seems proud that he abandoned his relative safety in the Reach to put his girlfriend, stepson, and as we later find out, in-utero biological son, in mortal danger for manly man stuff. Randyll would be so proud. However, he also finds out about his dad and brother Rickon dying, and has a very heartfelt cry. It’s actually nice to see the show tackle stuff like how a person processes grief for their abusers, and could stand as- what’s that? Oh yeah, D&D have us covered. Go on, hold our hands, D&D, we’re the windowlickers who actually like your contrived crap, throw us some statements of the obvious mixed with utter stupidity.

‘You know Sam’s older brother was not a bad person and died quite bravely, standing by his father’s side’. David Benioff, might I ask, how much of the basic fucking lore have you kinda forgot? Because in this season, it seems Dan Weiss is largely quiet, while you’re taking up all the stupid for yourself.

But given you’ve forgotten that Sam is a fucking POV character, we should not be surprised you would forget this. Let me lay out a basic summary of Sam’s backstory.

1: Randyll proud, masculine man. Has older son, who is fat, reading pansy.

2: Randyll not like this pansy, abuses him, even though heir.

3: Randyll have second son, more manly, better suited to be heir.

4: Randyll want second son to be heir, what do?

5: Randyll arranges a threat to make eldest son disinherit himself by going onto the Wall.

David Benioff, you gormless, basic-fact-forgetting hack. This is kind of the whole deal with Sam’s neuroses and his presence on the wall. How can you fuck up such a basic detail. Don’t tell me, it’s fine, you’ll just make yourself look stupider.

In addition, Jonbot gets the revelation that he is in fact a victim of incredibly moronic parenting decisions. He’s not Jon Snow all along, he’s Aegon Targaryen, son of Rhaegar Targaryen! No, not the one mothered by Elia Martell, the other one. Because the only male Targaryen name is Aegon these days. He reacts to this as he reacts to most things this season; like a sheet of damp cardboard, however, there’s a brief flicker of facial acting as he momentarily thinks he’s the result of Ned loving his sis a little too much.

Anyway, now we’re at Last Hearth, where, as it turns out, Jonbot and Dany should have taken a dragon. Dolorous Edd, Beardy the Wildling and Jesus Dondarrion, somehow surviving the collapse of a massive fucking ice wall they were standing on last season, arrive to find a wight child surrounded by limb-spirals! Get it, because it references that amazing scene at the start of the series that got people invested? Fuck off, D&D, nobody’s impressed. Well, maybe the window-lickers that pay your bills.

Finally, we get to end the first fucking episode with a bang. If by bang, you mean a tepid squelch. Jamjam the Apathetic to Innocents arrives at Winterfell, only to see Dr Branhattan being a creepy catatonic stoner. Then it cuts away, like most scenes that could involve a dramatic catch-up, conversation or altercation. Jesus Christ, this is just one episode and it’s almost 3000 words already. Strap in, folks, there’s a lot more where this comes from.

Episode Two: In which Brian Cogman tries his best to redeem this dumpsterfire, occasionally foiled by sideboob.

Because apparently Jamjam’s reunion with the person he shoved out the fucking window was apparently too uninteresting to show onscreen, instead we cut to Jaime being put on trial. Is it too much to ask for you to not cut way whenever something interesting could happen? Oh, it is? Okay, you do you, Dick and Dickhead.

Anyway, Crazy Dany asks where the Lannister army is at, no doubt wanting their respawn buff from last season. Jaime says that he managed to retrieve the buff and will apply it to the Dothraki and Unsullied immediately, but unfortunately there’s bad news. Cersei, destroyer of the Vatican and assassinator of brothers, lied to them.

Jamjam asks if pretty please he can live, but Crazy Dany is just so fruuuuuity! She wants to avenge the one-man terrible stereotype of her family and kill Jamjam, but St Terry is like ‘why don’t you spare him, it’s not like my lingering affection for my family has fucked over your campaign before’, and thankfully, Dany isn’t having any of it. Sandra even agrees with her, saying Terry is a trickster. I’d argue he’s just a moron by this point, but you do you, Sandra.

After being called out on his actions against the Starks, Jamjam claims they were at war. Being shown hospitality at Winterfell and pushing a Stark boy out of a window? Totally at war. Injuring Ned Stark on the streets of King’s Landing, leading to a conversation between Ned and Bobby B that this action could spark a war? Totally already at war.

Jamjam, you’re an idiot.

Thankfully, Dr Branhattan is there to say the plot-facilitating season one reference, prompting Dany to ask why he’s abandoned his family. He claims to fight for survival, and Brienne suddenly chimes in. She’s suffering from the same false memory syndrome as the rest of Weisseroff, claiming that he lost his hand protecting Brienne from rapists. No, he protected Brienne using clever words, he lost his hand threatening not-Vargo with his father for the millionth time.

But it’s okay, we can’t be mean to Brienne, because everyone seems to think she’s about to die (any more than the rest of humanity) and tries their best to be nice. Eventually, once Jonbot gives her the word, of course, Crazy Dany lets him go. She looks to Jonbot, but he can’t face her due to her being the world’s hottest aunt, so she turns her anger to Terry in private.

She calls him out for falling for Karen’s bullshit again, and understandably mistakes gross incompetence with malice (much like how I occasionally do the same with regards to these showrunners). St Terry (pbuh) doesn’t seem too threatened, and just makes a ‘joke’ that Varys or Jorah could be getting his job. I think it’s a joke. I’m not sure. They seem to think ‘because you have no cock’ counts as a joke, so take that as you will.

Then there’s a confusing scene in which Gendry Bolt shits all over basic blacksmithing by working obsidian weapons. Crystals aren’t metals you fucking hacks. Crystals shatter, metals bend. That’s why you work and mould metal, while you cut gems. Why the fuck is Gendry Bolt responsible for these fucking weapons? A gemcutter or a fucking jeweller is more qualified than him for this!

Of course, the scene is really here to establish rollicking sexual chemistry between Sociopathic Wolverine and Gendry Bolt, and Wolverine’s casual disregard for physics as she, in one throw, manages to embed three daggers into a post at three separate angles. Anime pays better attention to realism than this. Fuck you, D&D.

Finally, we get a scene where Jamjam actually fucking talks to Branhatten, but of course, just like how Sandra needed to be raped to become a strong woman who smirks while feeding men to dogs and Bronn needed the bad pussy, Dr Branhatten is like ‘water under the bridge, mate, you’re the one that’ll be under bricks and I’ll be sitting on the throne’. Jamjam goes ‘hold on, did you read the leaks?’ and Branhatten is like ‘Nah, I’m totes a psychic. But I only see the future sometimes. Hold my beer while I tease that one of us dies next episode just to subvert expectations’.

After that, there’s a few decent reunions between Terry and Jamjam and later, Jamjam and Brienne, Jorah heads into Crazy Dany’s room. Knowing Jorah, this is probably just to ask to send bobs and vagene, but as it turns out, Jorah’s into something much more homoerotic; fellating St Terry. He’s a smart man, he says about the dumbest strategist to ever live, and when Crazy Dany dares be rational and, I don’t know, point to his abysmal success rate, Jorah claims he learns from his mistakes.

Uh, no, no he doesn’t. He was tricked by Cersei into thinking she had a better nature twice, he suggested the moronic ‘siege to be more moral than dragon-assassination’ plan twice, got Dany’s respawning fleet destroyed twice, honestly, Terry should either be dead, fired, or ideally, dead by fire. I get it, D&D, Terry is the guy that gets you ratings and fills up your clever mug and shirt quota, but just fucking stop.

Theon teleports back to Winterfell, and Miss Sundae and Grey Worm do the kissy kissies and say how great it will be to retire to Naath, with the disease-ridden giant butterflies and constant raids by slavers. What an ideal retirement spot. It’d be a shame if something happened to one of them.

Then Beardy, Edd, and Jesus all arrive, and inform Jonbot of the military situation in one rude word. Apparently, they’ll reach Winterfell by daybreak! Nice of the Night King to play fair and not use all the jetpacks he must acquire from his dead named characters.

So, it’s off to plan for the battle, and Jonbot keeps insisting that if they kill the Night King, it’ll kill the entire Army of the Dead. Jonbot, how the fuck do you know that? You’ve killed white walkers, and their wights have fallen as a result (except when they conveniently don’t and you need them in a box). What makes you think the Night King is different? It could be that when he dies, only the dead he personally raised drop, while his White Walker generals continue the war for him.

Or literally a million other possibilities. Did Jonbot just play a fuck ton of video games and decide ‘THU NAHT KING IS CUMMIN A VIDYA GAEM BOSS, SAU IF HE DAIS WE WIN THU GAEM’. Thankfully, Dr Branhatten knows the boss’s weakness: Dr Branhatten is a hard taunt to the Night King. No matter what, if Bran’s on the field, the Night King has to approach and attack him. Dr Branhatten, knowing he’ll be king anyway, not-so-bravely volunteers to be bait.

Terry offers to fight too, seeing as that’s something he’s much more consistently succeeded at, but Crazy Dany, living up to her role as Mad Queen, drops to her knees and fellates Terry. ‘OH NO, TERRY, YOUR MIND IS TOO PRECIOUS TO LOSE! STAY IN THE CRYPTS WITH THE FUCKING MACH PUNCH DESSICATED SKELETONS, WHERE IT’S SAFE!’ I get it, Dany. After all, who’d fuck up literally everything you’d ever worked for if Terry wasn’t here?

The Hound has a brief heartfelt moment with Arya, then the general public loses their shit over a perhaps-adult-and-definitely-pubescent-girl showing an interest in sex, as opposed to wondering how anyone is supposed to think ‘ah, her first time’ when she’s a face-flaying sociopath who mocks Gendry Bolt for getting raped.

We get a heartfelt scene where Brienne gets knighted, which D&D eagerly stare at, ready to subvert at will in episode five, Sam gives Heartsbane to Jorah for no fucking reason, and Pod sings the best part of the season hands-down. Look at them all, sombrely reflecting on their mortality. Shame none of them are remotely mortal.

After that, Jonbot reveals his parentage to Crazy Dany, and just like how she magically knew what the fuck a night king was in Season 7, she just instantly knows Jon is telling the truth. His best friend and a talking catatonic tree who used to be his brother told him this. Maybe it’s a lie in his best interest? Oh, don’t ask questions, we all know the answer is ‘D&D kinda forgot about basic characterisation’.

Amateur hour reaches its end; now we get onto the real shit.

Episode three: In which military strategy works its way into an eighth-grade book report, and Kit Harrington screams at a CGI dragon.

So, thankfully, there isn’t much in the way of characterisation or lore fuckups this episode, meaning maybe the rant will end up under 10000 words. I somehow doubt it, but here goes. So shaky-cam, unbroken shots, and sheer unending darkness are the themes for this episode’s cinematography. Even better, just like anything else that happens when the creative team tries to ‘refute’ fans, the showrunners have this to say (paraphrased):

‘YOU POOR PIECES OF SHIT CAN’T AFFORD AN HD TV OF DECENT SIZE? OUR SHOW IS CINEMATIC, WE NEED YOU TO DIM YOUR LIGHTS, GET AN HD TV, AND STOP COMPLAINING. WE DIDN’T MAKE THIS SHOW FOR YOU SCHMUCKS WATCHING IT ON AN IPAD. FUCKING POOR PEOPLE, AM I RIGHT?’

Yes, of course, blame the fans for making a less visible night-time battle sequence than Helm’s Deep, a battle sequence filmed over ten years before this shitshow. Fuck you all.

Oh, right, the in-universe stuff. Melisansbra teleports into Winterfell and happens to be a mindreader, so she knows that Jonbot and Dany are moronic enough to put all the Dothraki outside the fucking castle walls, to do the amazing tactic done by Ramsay Bolton and Jonbot 9000; charging blindly into each other.

But not to be outdone by previous seasons, this time the military idiocy goes further, as the trebuchets are placed at the front of their army, predictably making them all get a grand total of one shot each if they’re lucky before the zombie horde charges over them. The Dothraki, charging like idiots, face their end.

No, seriously, David Benioff says that this is, essentially, the end of the Dothraki. Oh boy, I hope something one of the Ds has said won’t directly contradict later episodes. We know that never happens in this emmy-award-winning-show, right?

So the Dothraki and Unsullied are senselessly sacrificed, and Crazy Dany is grateful Jamjam stole the army respawn powerup from Karen. Angry that the people who trusted her to lead them to greatness are dying like flies, Dany decides ‘fuck this shit’ and flaunts her dragon CGI. Well, tries to. It’s hard to see when everything is dark. Much like fat Mario, nobody brought a light.

Something something boring spectacle; I find it so sad that all the beautiful choreography and hard work that no doubt goes into fighting scenes is wasted on such creatively bankrupt writing. In the right hands this could have been satisfying payoff, not more of the same.

Shot after shot depicts hero after hero being swarmed with undead, with no escape, but a camera cut later, they’re free and ready to continue. Wolverine, for the first time ever, isn’t an invincible badass. I will admit, I like this concept. Assassins are not warriors, and it’s stupid to think they are. This is kind of undermined by the whole ‘Wolverine beat Brienne in a straight fight’ thing, but… whatever.

Melisansbra retcons her own prophesy to say, in very subtle terms, ‘Aryaaaaaaaa, use the fooooorce. Also, Jesus Dondarrion, do the cross thing’. Then Jesus does the cross thing and Arya runs off. Then, due to D&D needing that sweet, sweet subversion, we all forget about her. Theon mercifully dies protecting Bran, meaning he won’t have to live to episode five and say ‘To be honest, I never cared about Sandra, and I’m gonna join Urine now’.

Jonbot, apparently having been in an invisible dragon battle, is now cornered by UnViserion, so he does what any interesting character does. That’s right, scream like an idiot. Poor, poor Jon. Poorer Kit Harrington.

All seems lost, so of course, that’s when your subversions have to become expected! Oh, I think I mixed that up. Oh, no, no, that was correct. In TEH BETS PLET TWOST EVAR, it isn’t a character with a linked arc to the Night King that kills him, it’s… some face-flaying psycho bitch with an anime jump. Okay then, consider my expectations subverted, D&D. Next can you make a good series, because that would be master-class subversion.

It’s a good thing Jonbot read the incomprehensible, self-contradictory scrawl that no doubt constitutes D&D’s lore book for the show universe, because killing the Night King does, in fact, kill every White Walker, every wight, everything the show had been building up. Oh boy. Let’s hope no surprise villains come up, eh?

Melisansbra, realising her existence could force D&D to expose any of the wax-crayon-drawn drivel in their magic lore book, decides it’s time for a plot induced death. She takes off her choker, wanders into the snow, and fucking dies.

Episode Four: The last shreds of the show’s dignity disappearing, or, how I learned to stop worrying and enjoy a trainwreck

After the Short Night has ended, and a grand total of five named characters (Edd, Jesus, Jorah, Theon, and Annoying Meme-spewing Little Shit run into the ground by D&D) getting killed, the North has the world’s smallest funeral pyre considering the catastrophic loss of life for both the living and the now massive reserves of inanimate undead.

Everyone is so sad, and look at how much it’s cost them! Kit Harrington’s handsome face has a booboo, and how will we ever awkwardly sexualise Maisie Williams again when she has those minor cuts and bruises. Truly the Army of the Dead was a threat to the Realms of Men. Definitely worth the build up.

They all gather in the Great Hall. Why? Well, to lampshade more things so we don’t have to think about them, of course! Robert, Stannis, and Renly Baratheon, as well as the daughter of Stannis Crazy Dany completely forgets, they’re all dead! So who rules Storm’s End? LOL, WE DUNNO, WHO CARES! Sorry, D&D, that is not enough. We’d rather you just fully embrace you’ve forgotten about the Stormlands than pretend that you actually give a fuck.

Anyway, Gendry Rivers is legitimised to- excuse me what the fuck. Rivers? Rivers? Don’t act like bastard lore isn’t the same in HBO-verse, it fucking is! There’s lore videos on this shit that were released to accompany the DVDs back in the day, and bastardy was covered. Gendry was sired and raised in King’s Landing, making him Gendry Waters. Or maybe, if you want to honour Bobby B’s stormlander heritage, fine, make him Gendry Storm. Or, due to him never being fucking acknowledged, just plain fucking Gendry.

D&D, why do you do this? Why do you say completely unnecessary shit that only serves to make you look like gormless twats? You didn’t need to say Dickon Rickon was Sam’s older brother, and if you were unsure, that’s fine, just say ‘brother’. Easy peasy lemon squeezie. And in this case, why, when Genry hasn’t had a surname at all, would you suddenly give him the surname Rivers. My god this is so avoidably dumb.

Anyway, Gendry Rivers gets legitimised as Lord of Storm’s End, because I’m sure the peasants of Storm’s End, who for all we know have formed a functional democracy or some shit given we have no clue who runs it, will accept this random rowboat sonic hedgehog from Flea Bottom as their leader. Gendry has a better claim over King’s Landing. At least there he understands the city and its people. But let’s save that little piece of trivia for later.

Davos takes note of the Lord of Light’s capriciousness, which is hilarious given that Jesus Dondarrion kept using the Lord of Light as an obvious stand-in for the plot’s demands. I guess Davos is the smartest man in the show, because even he knows how nonsensical and random the plot is. St Terry then points out the whole reason the Army of the Dead was killed early. Now get ready for this, because you might not be prepared for the amount of cutting, edgy, topical insight in this concept.

HUMONS R TEH REEL MUNSTERS

Oh my goooood! Karen is evil and we need to stop heeeeer! What shall we dooooo? Well, those questions are put on hold as Terry shoots the shit with Bran. He says, ‘Oh boy, you’d be a great Lord of Winterfell’, and Bran says ‘Nah, I’m saving myself for the Throne’, and Terry says, ‘Have you been reading the script, Bran?’, and he says, ‘Oh shit, what I meant to say was, I don’t really want anymore’.

Bull fucking shit, President Branhatten.

Anyway, let’s all toast Wolverine for being an invincible self-regenerating anime protagonist, complete with mini-arc where she just needed to believe in herself to beat the bad guy. Then let’s toast being friends and make a grieving Crazy Dany do le crazy eyes. After that, Terry, Podrick, Jamjam, and Brienne all play ‘never did I ever’, and oh noooooo! Brienne is a virgin as a highborn womaaaaaan! Obviously she needs to get laid.

Now, you may be wondering; when did Westeros, a feudal, quasi-medieval society, turn into a frat house? And the problem is, you’re not thinking fourth-dimensionally enough. This has never been Westeros, but instead Weisseroff, D&D’s personal frat house where you can enjoy lame cock jokes, incest galore, uncomfortably sexualised rape, zero continuity, laughter at female-on-male rape, the casual murder of any man for a patronising ‘yas queen’ moment, and yes, virgin-shaming women even when it makes zero fucking sense for the setting.

Brienne fucks off in shame, so now it’s onto Sansa, reminiscing about her needlessly sadistic murder while speaking on D&D’s behalf by saying that she totes needed to get raped to be stronger, unlike Arya, who was ‘already there’. Seeeeeeeeee, it’s not cheap use of rape when the female character we have direct control over says we aren’t sexist! Fuck you, D&D.

You’re as sexist as they come. Spiteful and pathetic too. We know that your ‘women on top’ was a pathetic excuse to pander to sexist SJWs who think empowerment means never seeing a woman lose. We know about your sexualised killing off of Ros’s actress when she refused further nude scenes. We know about your gleeful killing off of Barristan Selmy when good ol’ Ian pointed out that he had loads of fun shit from the books to do. We know of your shooting down of NCW’s concerns about Jaime by refusing to reveal scripts ahead of time and telling him to shut up and ‘just say the lines’.

Do you understand, D&D? We know you’re a pair of spiteful, arrogant, greying, sophomoric little toads with an incest fetish. We all think you’re disgusting, and undeserving of a Star Wars deal. Oh, right, back to the episode.

Gendry Baratheon (formerly Rivers. Just reminding you they actually did that) approaches Arya, and fucking proposes. On one knee. Not even fucking subtle. You know, normally characters saying shit they shouldn’t know but only the audience knows can at least be generously handwaved as ‘they learned offscreen’. It’s a lazy justification, but it’s plausible. But tell me, how the fuck did Gendry learn about Earth, western cultural moorings, weddings, and proposals?

Thank fuck Arya turns him down, even as he tells Maisie Williams how beautiful she is and all that good stuff. Between getting this girl Ed Sheeran and showering her with the chief kill for the Army of the Dead, a handsome bloke telling her she’s beautiful, and a scene where she’s the sympathetic focus of a destruction montage she survives, I have to wonder, what do D&D want in return from poor Maisie? Actually, don’t answer that, those two are creepy fuckers.

Anyway, next scene, and Crazy Dany and the Jonbot are sharing a room. Dany wants Boatsex 2.0: Landed Edition, but unfortunately, Jon can’t get a hardon for his aunt. But incest is wincest, Jonbot! Ask Jamjam, he’s got you covered. Anyway, Dany finally realises the ramifications of him being her nephew, and the following exchange ensues:

Crazy Dany: Hey, can you not fuck up the conquest I’ve planned for years by revealing your heritage?

Jonbot: Not reveal my heritage?

Crazy Dany: Yes, because it would completely deplatform my claim to the throne.

Jonbot: Not reveal my lineage, to help the person I love keep the throne I don’t even want?

Crazy Dany: Yeah, that’s the gist of it.

Jonbot: Seems easy enough.

Crazy Dany: Oh thank god.

Jonbot: JK LOL I’M GONNA TELL SANDRA AND WOLVERINE ROFL LOOK AT MY HONOUR!

Never mind that Ned Stark, mister honour himself, kept this realm-destroying secret for decades. Oh well, I’m sure nothing could backfire from this. Heh. Fire puns. Anyway, for no particular reason, Jamjam fucks Brienne to take her virginity, ruining her marriage prospects forever, but at least he’s going to stay with her and probably marry her to make up for it. I mean, it’s not like he’d randomly decide incest is still wincest at the last minute. Right? Right?

Anyway, the next day comes, and they’re all planning for war. Yara has the Iron Islands, and the Prince of fucking Dorne are in. The Prince of Dorne. The Prince of fucking Dorne? Do these chuckleheads hear themselves? Who the fuck is the Prince of Dorne? You first assume there’s no-one who’s stepped up to take the mantle of Storm’s End, hence Gendry can be thrown there with no friction, then you just announce that a random prince filled the power vacuum left by Ellaria ‘Avenge the Martells by fucking murdering them’ Sand?

I know you’re shit at coming up with rules for this laughably defunct ‘world’ of Weisseroff, but Jesus Christ, try not to contradict yourself in the same fucking episode. Just fucking try.

Anyway, Crazy Dany and Jonbot want to fight with the army they have. Apparently half the Dothraki and Unsullied remain. Essentially the end of the Dothraki, eh, D&D? Sandra once again just remains fucking logical by pointing out the need to rest and regroup, so of course, in typical Weisseroff fashion, Sandra is an evil wrong naysayer.

Then Jonbot gathers his so-called siblings in the Godswood and is like ‘DaNy ToLd Me NoT tO tElL bUt I’m AcTuAlLy AeGoN tArGaRyEn WiLl YoU pRoMiSe NoT tO tElL?’ And, being good ol’ family, the Starks maintain their honourable pledge by a heart tree and- Sandra’s already told Terry what the actual fuck.

Okay, Sandra’s not been the nicest to Dany, but being honest, most of her concerns were legit. She couldn’t conjure food from thin air, Dany doesn’t have any love in the North, and unless they’re teleporting, armies do need to rest! Why is she suddenly the bad guy? Is she a representative of all those ‘pedants’ who couldn’t swallow your ‘plausibly implausible’ supersonic ravens/dragons? Spare me.

Anyway, she tells Terry, but not before another confusing scene in which Bronn teleports into a tavern, holds Terry and Jamjam at gun crossbowpoint, and demands payment. Hold up, what the fuck happened to not betting against dragons. You’re coming in here attempting to assassinate the hand to the Dragon Queen. Also, Bronn, if you really resented Jamjam that much and considered Karen more reliable, why didn’t you leave Jamjam to drown in the Mariana Trench puddle?

Oh well, Bronn is an incoherent character and therefore subverts expectations, meaning he almost certainly deserves a spot on Bran’s crony council. Anyway, after Terry promises Highgarden, a castle and kingdom of Westeros he has no fucking way of securing on Bronn’s behalf, the cutthroat leaves. God, everyone in Weisseroff is stupid.

Anyway, after that, it’s big lame happy ending o’clock. Sam and Gilly get sent away, and it’s revealed Gilly is pregnant! Well, to be fair, after seeing Sam brag about being an oversexed oathbreaking maester-school dropout to Edd, it only makes sense that Gilly’s arc has her begin and end as some fat idiot’s sex trophy.

Beardy heads off, and Jonbot, devoid of soul, tells Beardy to take Ghost with him. And in a subversion of expectations I legitimately never saw coming, this is the one scene of the season which started shitty, and then a later scene actually made it  better. Thank god you petted the doggo in episode six Jonbot. Otherwise you’d be dead.

After that, it’s time for Crazy Dany’s Dragon Flight Simulator! It’s so fun, flying through the skies, but oh no! xxxEuron420noscoper69xxx has used his stockpiled Yara aimbot and there’s not a single shirtless man or dog in sight! As such, the artist formerly known as Urine nails not one, not two, not three, but four ballistae from a distance!

Dany should have been able to see a fleet on open water from the vantage point of the fucking sky, but thankfully D&D gotcha covered. As we all know, they have great explanations for every-

‘Dany kind of forgot about the Iron Fleet’

Oh fucking joy. David Benioff, never change. Just keep adding fuel to the fire, you moronic, honestly inspiring idiot. It’s great to see seventh-grade dropouts turn their life around and get a job working for the biggest show in history, even if you might suffer a little on items requiring eighth-grade knowledge.

After that, xxxEuron420noscoper69xxx goes one better and demolishes Dany’s fleet (again), and so Varys coughs up a nice meme, the group gathers their strength on the one beach of Dragonstone and- hold up, where’s Miss Sundae?

Oh, of course, she’s teleported to Urine’s ship to be fridged. Good one, D&D, really got me going when you said how much they were looking forward to retiring. Anyway, for some idiotic reason, Dany then thinks it’s a good idea to bring her pitifully small army right in front of Karen’s walls.

Not only that, but Karen, dishonourable fiend that she is, actually understands the benefits of city walls. Basic military competence, the horror! No wonder she’s survived so long in this world of braindead imbeciles. Unfortunately, Karen isn’t too smart, as while she doesn’t buy Terry’s ‘we totes have you on the ropes, surrender lol’ BS, she doesn’t think to, upon beheading her hostage and thus guaranteeing no quarter:

1: Shoot any ballistae, at all.

2: Command any archers, at all.

3: Take any further hostages, or take advantage of the fact that the Dragon Queen is right fucking there and has a grounded dragon at all.

If it’s close enough for St Terry to talk with you, it’s close enough for the ultra-noscope ballistae to hit. Fuck this show. Anyway, Daenerys is angrehface, and somehow gets away in a huff. She’s ready to fulfil Miss Sundae’s dying wish: Dracarys.

Episode Five: In which Daenerys gets triggered by some bells and gets the high score on Death Race.

The episode starts with Varys, writing letters, not letting the ink dry, then turning them over. It’s a minor nitpick, but look at earlier seasons when they gave a crap. Shocking, eh? Anyway, he’s acting suspiciously, but is ever so nice to his little bird, which means only one thing: He’s fucking marked for death.

He then goes onto a beach and loudly says, ‘hEy JoN wAnNa Do A tReAsOn?’ and Jonbot says his trademark catchphrases that made him so beloved. ‘I don’t want it’, ‘she is my queen’, all the classics. He pisses off, but St Terry, smartest man in the world, has spotted them!

It turns out having the subtlety of a neon light in a windowless room isn’t a good strategy to stealthily overthrow Dany, and Terry tells her she’s been betrayed. Not long after, Varys is killed for his moronic, blatant treason, meaning he and Batfinger, allegedly the two smartest men in Westeros, went out like idiots.

Now, I’d like to address the ‘bUt He TrIeD tO pOiSoN hEr FiRsT’ argument. It’s almost certainly implied, given Crazy Dany also stopped eating. Imagine this plan succeeded. Dany falls over dead, what next? They have a dragon who for all intents and purposes could go berserk for all they know, a bunch of respawned, pissed-off Unsullied and Dothraki, which happen to be the only significant army on-hand, aside from Jonbot’s twenty good northmen.

So what was Varys’s plan after that? There was none, that’s what. D&D decided he was going to die, so they just butchered him and made him go out like an idiot. Don’t worry, he’s not going to be the last. As he’s immolated, Jon for some reason acts… concerned about this.

Like, you know better than anyone that Varys just asked for your help to commit treason. Execution by dragonfire is still execution? Why is indifference to the deaths of abusers (as opposed to smirking sadism, which is perfectly sympathetic), ruthlessness to enemies, killing of enemy leaders in warfare upon refusal of surrender, and basic fucking executions counted as foreshadowing or character development towards the mad queen conclusion?

Oh, I’m getting ahead of myself. But we all know what happens after that. Dany says fuck it, sweeps in with a dragon, the northmen, Dothraki and Unsullied all do their part, Terry’s repeated claim that ‘the bells mean surrender’ finally pays off, and surprise surprise, the bells ring.

The following is a recreation of the following scene, using only Michael Rosen quotes:

BOIIIING BOING! That’s when [Dany’s] brain starts doing things. I think you know what I mean. Mad dog stuff. OH NO! THE MOMENT I DREAD WHEN [DANY] GOES FROM BEING CHEERY, TO ABSOLUTELY FURIOUS! Kaboom! Kaboom! Kaboom! KEEL OVER AND DIE! Oh no, this is horrible! Hurr, hard luck, always knew you were a bit weak. Oh no, there’s [Jaime]. That’s a shame, [he] was really nice. I'm very sorry, [Arya], but nobody, nobody at all cares about you.

You get the idea. It’s so dumb it doesn’t sound out of place in a Michael Rosen Youtube Poop. God fucking help me. And then, after the completely fOrEsHaDoWeD snap of Crazy Dany, now offering dragonfire at low, low prices, she goes on a strafing run and murders civvies.

But I’m sure D&D have a worthy explanation!

‘And it’s… hearing those bells, seeing the Red Keep, that Dany decides to take it personally.’

By strafing the city and burning everything but the fucking Red Keep. I told you, amateur hour ended ages ago. This right here is someone shitting in their office seat and demanding he get a raise for it.

But don’t worry, other arcs get massacred. Jamjam makes it to King’s Landing, gets into a scuffle with Urine Greyjoy, who dies thinking that he’ll be beloved for killing the kingslayer, forgetting he noscoped a fucking dragon. Jamjam also goes ahead and claims he never cared for the innocents of King’s Landing despite that being the most important aspect of his backstory. Then he goes back to his sister-lover and dies in her arms, being crushed by a falling Red Keep (when Dany got around to attacking it between civvie massacres).

Now, this is where I start to make wild theories and assumptions. Because while GRRM clearly sees Jaime and Cersei as a toxic relationship born of some really fucked up complexes, I think that D&D actually really liked it as a romance. Like, a legitimate, star-crossed lover kind of romance.

Here’s my points:

1: They omit the valonqar half of the prophecy that fucks up Cersei’s childhood, meaning she may not end up being killed by her younger brother (Jaime/Tyrion, she assumed Tyrion)

2: Jaime never turns against Cersei because they never had Tyrion telling him that she’s ‘been fucking Lancel, Osmund Kettleblack and Moon Boy for all I know’, making him remain a loyal lapdog when he’d normally be off in the Riverlands, pissed at Cersei and trying to become a better person.

3: In Dorne, for literally no reason other than it’s the token ‘sexually liberated’ place, Ellaria Sand claims Jaime and Cersei’s incest would be accepted there, essentially claiming that truly sexually liberated places would let these poor lovers do what they want!

4: Jaime doesn’t abandon Cersei after she literally does the thing he stabbed Aerys in the back to prevent.

5: The constant ‘we only need each other’ refrain, ‘us against the world’, et cetera.

To me, it feels like D&D didn’t like the idea of Jaime actually developing as a character because… simply put, they considered incest to be wincest. They thought this fucked-up brother and sister relationship worked much better as an unironic love story, hence they gave Cersei and Jaime a death in each other’s arms. Tellingly, if this is true, it shows they are capable of planning ahead, but only if it's something they care about, like promoting incest.

Aside over, the Hound fights Purple Varys on Mustafar, while Wolverine survives more unsurvivable shit. Buildings fall on her, flames go through and char entire reams of peasants, but not Wolverine. Also, according to D&D, she’s the sympathetic viewpoint that anchors you. Apparently viewers just don’t fucking care that a bunch of innocents die unless Maisie fucking Williams is involved.

Then she finds a pale horse, because death symbolism, unless it’s a white horse, in which case because conquest symbolism. Also, Grey Worm is a war criminal now. He scored a perfect ten on a surrendered soldier because fuck it, indiscriminate murder is suddenly fun when your queen is playing death race.

Episode Six: In which D&D briefly write an eighth-grade book report, then say fuck it and yell DEMOCRACY GUD.

So, despite it being a desert in the last two episodes, suddenly, King’s Landing is not only covered in ash, but covered in snow. Oh well, the winter kinda forgot to stick around after Season 7’s mildly poignant ending, but it returned in time for the finale and House of the Undying vision. Crazy Dany is so loopy she’s a nazi now, and everyone is kind of disgusted with the situation. Terry rips off his hand badge and gets thrown into prison (honestly, why wouldn’t Crazy Dany kill him on the spot, he’s been a thorn in her side for ages and she’s kind of past the point of tasteful restraint).

The Unsullied and Dothraki, however, remain fanatically loyal. Heck, I reckon if someone were to stab Queen Dany in the fucking heart, they’d kill that man on the spot! St Terry searches the suspiciously not-so-ruined ruins of King’s Landing and reveals Jamjam and Karen’s amazingly intact bodies. In addition, due to the ruins, it’s clear if they stepped two feet away, they’d have survived!

Now, my friend, the former showpologist, had this to say on this scene. From the looks of it and the fact their heads are so intact, Jaime and Cersei could very well be alive, just out cold and injured. Tyrion’s tears are in fact tears of joy, then he dragged them out, put them on Davos’s stupid fucking dingy that apparently can make it to Pentos ‘if the winds are right’ without a fucking sail.

Oh, sorry, that started as my friend’s theory, but then another dose of stupid consumes me. Anyway, Terry is a prisoner and Jonbot visits him. Despite there being those fanatically loyal Unsullied everywhere, he, much like Varys before him, goes ‘hEy JoN wAnNa TrY tO kIlL dAnY’. And for once, Jonbot does something proactive.

He tries to talk her down, but it’s clear that once you go psychotic dragonrider who burns civilians for shits and gigs, you never go bychotic dragonrider who burns civilians for shits and gigs. So he kisses his aunt, stabs her in the heart, and to be honest, I felt a little twinge of… something in my black heart.

Then, sulky snow Drogon comes out of hiding, checks his mother’s body, and finds the culprit: Sharp things. And there’s a chair full of those. Fuck that chair, that chair needs to die, melt that fucking chair.

On a serious note, I get what D&D were trying here. They were trying to be thematic, actually make some commentary and have Drogon in a way achieve what Dany wanted by breaking the symbol of the wheel. However, it was a little laughable trying to square the circle of how the fuck Drogon checked his dead mother, looked to Jon and said ‘nah, you’re not to blame, but this chair, this chair is somehow to blame’.

Come a time skip, and it seems Jonbot was not killed on the spot by the Unsullied, but instead imprisoned. Now they’re treating with the northmen when, given how there’s five northmen and the Unsullied and Dothraki respawn like crazy, means really, they should kill Jonbot, kill the northmen, then decide who to succeed without this lord decision nonsense. They’re the only major military force remaining in the city, why wouldn’t they just rule by force?

Regardless, there’s another pressing problem: Who rules Westeros. Well, this is where a certain legitimised bastard comes into play. Who was the last queen to spend a significant time with her arse on the Iron Throne? Oh yeah, Cersei Lannister. Or rather, as her claim is through widowhood to the king, Cersei Baratheon. In fact, only Daenerys has acted as a recent Targaryen monarch. Everyone else, Bobby B, Joffers, Tommy T, and Karen, they were all Baratheon claimants.

Gendry Rivers Baratheon has a legitimate claim! But… of course, no-one fucking cares. Instead, they call a vote. Sam suggests asking the people, but this is laughed down. Not for any actual reasons that make sense, just idiot reasons like ‘trust the riffraff, ha, we’re stuck up noblemen, can’t you tell?’

As someone who lives in Britain and am feeling the pain of a badly cast referendum, I can tell you that there are several cases against democracy. While it’s easy to think that because most successful nations are republics, that it’s always been this way, the truth is, opponents to democracy need not be strawmen.

Moving on. At the very least, kudos for having the suggestion of true democracy be rejected, because transitioning from feudal monarchy is not fucking easy. However, first off… why the Edmure hate?

Oh, haha, he can’t shoot an arrow. Oh, haha, he actually won a battle he was supposed to lose because Robb Stark didn’t give him clear directions! Oh, haha, he became a prisoner because he was taken hostage at his own wedding.

What a fucking loser, amirite? Definitely deserved scorn for attempting to step up when nobody else fucking bothered. Anyway, the person to get voted in is Bran. Bran.

The catatonic, apathetic, impotent (thank you Sandra, it’s my honeypot you brought that up as revenge for him saying you looked beautiful on your rapeday), perpetually stoned cripple who openly admits to being apathetic to the present… is your best king. Not only that, but Terry gets rewarded for his batshit logic again (whose story is better?) by becoming Hand of the Monarch again?

Then, after that, Bran does the idiotic. His choice for Master of Ships makes sense, heck, given her dutiful nature, Brienne being a kingsguard also adds up. But a fucking oathbreaking dropout as your Grand Maester? A cutthroat as your Master of Coin? This is blatant cronyism.

Terry crowns Bran as ‘King Bran the Broken’, and Sam writes his story down in a book called ‘A Song of Ice and Fire’. Fuck you, D&D. Fuck you. Also, a little side note on ‘King Bran the Broken’, and these idiot showrunners seeming to think that an elective monarchy fixes everything.

I actually have experience writing an elective monarchy. Why? One of the nations in the fantasy world I’m developing, Arkhera, has an elective monarchy, and it’s far from problem-free.

1: There’s an issue D&D unintentionally highlight themselves; cronyism exists. While in theory, any Arkheran citizen can, as long as they convince the current king they are a worthy successor, become king, in truth, Arkheran rulership is a circlejerk between four families (Shearwater, Godspeak, Boathis, and Axol). Elective monarchies ultimately rely on the opinion of the few, just like any other monarchy.

2: Who in their right fucking mind crowns a king ‘X the Broken’. Now, the current Arkheran king in my world is a broken man. Riddled from PTSD from both war injuries and personal issues, a former alcoholic since scared teetotal. When he was crowned, he was prematurely greyed, with jaundiced alcoholic’s eyes. Yet it’d be a PR nightmare to call him ‘King Landon the Broken’. Instead, if they’d dare to dub him at all, they’d probably dub him ‘King Landon the Diligent’, or something to turn his endurance against trauma into a positive. You big up the King, you make him inspiring. That’s kind of the point of a leader.

3: Arkheran nobility doesn’t just have a king and his council. It has a prince. That’s right, as the King is a likely target for assassinations, it’s best to always be prepared to die and have an heir on standby if you don’t need to fuck your wife and cook your heir in the oven for nine months. Landon Shearwater (yes, it’s a pun) has two, just in case his first in line gets himself killed in battle. Succession is much more direct and versatile in an elective monarchy, yet Bran, prime assassin bait, a crippled, catatonic idiot, doesn’t seem too concerned about his probable untimely death.

Anyway, that’s it, I’m fucking done. The rest of the people have a shitty happy ending, Ghost gets his pet, and ‘standing tall’ plays to fucking freeze frames of the cast. God, what a shitty season. There’s no time for sitting down and analysing what went right or wrong. Once again, just read this recap and you’ll know my thoughts.

[Hodor the Articulate]

1 hour ago, ohiostate124 said:

Here’s hoping Jon finds Val among the wildlings

So he can kill her, like he did his last two girlfriends?

1 hour ago, divica said:

Have you guys realized that the starks also fucked jon?

If bran can see the future and decided that jon needed to know his parentage at the moment he did then he planed everything.

Sansa betrayed jon and started the chain of events that led to jon killing danny and being exiled.

It is an awful thought! The 2 starks ploted and ended up as king/queen and jon exiled...

Don't forget: Arya could have easily used her magical assassin skills to kill Dany but noooo... it has to be Jon who does it. The Stark kids are dicks, man.

[SeanF]

Depressing and funny at the same time.

I can't help coming back to Dany.  We knew she'd fail, but being killed by a stray  arrow, a bolt from a ballista, a vengeful soldier, would do.  It's sad, but the character will still be mourned, and commanders sometimes die that way, Instead she had to be turned into Daenerys, She Wolf of the SS, to justify Jon stabbing her to death.

And we learn from the show runners that she broke bad when she failed to stop Drogo killing her brother

RIP Daenerys.  We first met you being molested by your brother, and left you murdered by your nephew.

[Centrist Simon Steele]

1 hour ago, aquintus said:

I love how Sansa has basically the same motivations at the end as Dany, with both desperately coveting a throne, but the story turns Dany into an evil Hitler-eque monster while Sansa is presented as justified (despite actively working against Jon). 

Yeah, I get this. Sansa was an ass, and she's still a "good guy" while Dany was always good, and, well...I'm just rehashing what's already been said. But Sansa really didn't come off well.

[aquintus]

1 hour ago, House Cambodia said:

That's nonsense. Sansa never craved the throne. She could easily have pitched for the (melted) Throne at the meeting if she'd wanted it and the choice would have been unanimous. All she wanted was freedom for the North, who had had it for 8000 minus 300 years and deserved it after suffering the bulk of damage from the AotD.

I never said that she craved the Iron throne. She wanted the Northern throne. She was always noticeably jelous that Jon was King in the North. She actively worked to undermine his authority. And at the end, she unilaterally decided that the North would be independent (despite Bran Stark being King) just so she could finally be Queen. 

Edit:

The point is that Dany's main character motivation - to be queen - is suddenly painted as the most evil thing ever at the end, while Sansa' main character motivation - also to be queen - is glossed over and treated as fine, despite Sansa actively working against the good guy alliance that Jon and Dany had built. 

[Hodor the Articulate]

I thought of another rant-worthy thing: wasn't executing people without trial supposed to be evil, even if the executees were evil slavers? But it's totes ok to do it to Dany.

And what happened to Sansa's "my family doesn't do well in the capital"? My family will rule in the capital, and allow me to be Queen of an independent North without a fight, you say? Oh, well forget what I said before then.

Thematic consistency - what is it?