Game of Thrones (spoilers)

[OptimisticJock]

Yeah, she's shown for a long time that she's hat the mental targ gene in her. It's something else that could be fixed with a few more episodes rather than the accelerated snap we got.

Accelerated? They've been building it for about 6 series, since before she crossed the narrow sea. It's been her entire rhetoric. Her first option every time has been "burn the shit out of everything with my dragons" and talking her out of it has become noticeably increasingly difficult. There is nothing sudden about her descent.

Yes. Accelerated.

[Numbers]

Yeah, she's shown for a long time that she's hat the mental targ gene in her. It's something else that could be fixed with a few more episodes rather than the accelerated snap we got.

Accelerated? They've been building it for about 6 series, since before she crossed the narrow sea. It's been her entire rhetoric. Her first option every time has been "burn the shit out of everything with my dragons" and talking her out of it has become noticeably increasingly difficult. There is nothing sudden about her descent.

Yes. Accelerated.

Which I suppose could be because she has just lost her two closest friends.

[Stom]

Accelerated? They've been building it for about 6 series, since before she crossed the narrow sea. It's been her entire rhetoric. Her first option every time has been "burn the shit out of everything with my dragons" and talking her out of it has become noticeably increasingly difficult. There is nothing sudden about her descent.

Yes. Accelerated.

Which I suppose could be because she has just lost her two closest friends.

It was too rushed. This was a story that could have been given the proper attention. Even a whole episode focusing on Dany and maybe Dany and Jon.

But instead we got snippets and everyone got distracted by the awfulness of the rest of S8 so didn't notice the accelerated demise.

Which is my main problem: it wasn't artfully done. As with most things this season and last, it was too blunt, there was a lack of subtlety and it felt out of pace.

I actually like the overall arc of most of the characters. I feel like they're perfect for the characters. I just don't like the way we get to their ends (in terms of series finale, not death). I just feel like there was so much more that could have been done. Which is a shame because I was commenting on S1-5 that the cut characters made complete sense. I agreed with most of what the showrunners had done to condense the books and I felt it worked incredibly well...

Which irritates me.

[Eugene Wrayburn]

Accelerated? They've been building it for about 6 series, since before she crossed the narrow sea. It's been her entire rhetoric. Her first option every time has been "burn the shit out of everything with my dragons" and talking her out of it has become noticeably increasingly difficult. There is nothing sudden about her descent.

Yes. Accelerated.

Which I suppose could be because she has just lost her two closest friends.

Quite.

[Peat]

Accelerated? They've been building it for about 6 series, since before she crossed the narrow sea. It's been her entire rhetoric. Her first option every time has been "burn the shit out of everything with my dragons" and talking her out of it has become noticeably increasingly difficult. There is nothing sudden about her descent.

Yes. Accelerated.

Which I suppose could be because she has just lost her two closest friends.

It's what, thirty minutes of TV between death 2 and Dany losing it?

Given that the entire show is 72 and a half hours of TV, that seems pretty accelerated to me given the context.

[Numbers]

I don't really get the complaints, from you or that I've seen elesewhere.

The characters are behaving in character.

The logistics have been glossed over a bit, but it really wasn't necessary to have 5 episodes of someone journeying from one place to another this season because there's basically 1 set of events rather than half a dozen.

No they haven't. Cersei, for instance, doesn't kill Tyrion and Danny when she has ample opportunity at their parley outside Kings Landing. She absolutely hates Tyrion with a vengeance, and doesn't at ll care about playing by any rules, as evident when she bombed the Sept in a 'genius' move. She shouldn't even be alive after that bombing, but she is, and doesn't seem to suffer from consequences to her actions anymore. That being the case, why would she not just have every archer and scorpion fire on them all, then send out her soldiers to make sure they're all dead? All of her problems would seem to have been over. Danny is dead, along with her last dragon, so there's no real threat to her throne anymore as the North is happy to stay in the North, and no one else seems to care that she's somehow queen. She also gets to kill Tyrion and fulfil a very personal vendetta. Win-win for her. Instead she lets them walk away for some reason after killing Danny's Google Translator. Why? Because it would be all over if she acted in-character, so the plot demands she doesn't.

Some other out of character examples since the books were overtaken or ignored:

• To continue with Cersei, she's suddenly become a political mastermind instead of being the overconfident amateur she is. See her decision to bomb the Sept and not to partake in the Long Night Brief Evening;
• All of the previously politically savvy characters -- Tyrion, Varys and Littlefinger -- became dumb and useless. Varys does f*ck all. Littlefinger thought giving Sansa away to a psychopath was a good idea. Tyrion counsels not to immediately attack Kings Landing with three dragons, and a complete army of Dothraki and Unsullied, after defeating a Lannister army two days march from the city;
• Everyone on team Danny deciding to engage in a pointless siege instead of just killing Cersei via Seal Team Arya or just Bran;
• Davos being totally cool with potentially starving out his home city, despite his deeming starvation to be just about the worst way to die;
• The Iron Bank decides that the narcissistic alcoholic mayor of Kings Landing is a better bet than the contender with three dragons;
• Ramsay Bolton quickly escalates from a rabid psycho into a Mary Sue/Marty Stu;
• The North does not remember, nor care, about Ned's legacy so don't rise up against aforementioned Marty Stu psycho in support of his children;
• Stannis Baratheon burning his daughter;
• The Sand Snakes deciding that the best way to avenge a death in their family is to kill their family;
• As touched on above, just about the entire population of Westeros absolutely not giving a single f*ck that Cersei murdered two prominent lords of the realm (including her uncle), the popular queen and the popular pope.

To name but a few.

What has annoyed me is that there has been an awfully heavy hand of plot leaning on the scales. The death of the dragon last week required it to be sniped, three times in three shots, from a ridiculous distance. I read an article where someone did the maths and in order for it to reach and cover the distance, the projectiles had to be supersonic as well as inhumanly aimed to hit a small target without any wind effect from a scorpion mounted on a floating platform. Not to mention that the fleet managed to hide from an aerial force.

But you can quite easily say that's nitpicking and I'll buy that - call it a fun romp and let's not worry about the physical plausibility of deadeye scorpions firing over a mile when it's a world where there are dragons and zombies. Fair enough - I'll buy that.

What you can't then do is have a massive arsenal of the same scorpions fail to hit or even present any threat to a dragon next episode. You can't have it both ways - either the scorpions can kill a dragon because they're that badass, or riding a dragon is such a sure thing that you can charge a hundred of them and dodge all of the bolts without them even posing a slight risk.

Exactly. There's no consistency in power levels. Between E4 and E5 the scorpions transform from rapid firing, heat-seeking rail guns to slow loading water pistols because that's what the plot demands. Similarly, the dragons go from being scaled up ducks into being weapons of mass destruction because that's what the plot demands. Either they're large ducks facing rapid firing rail guns, and Kings Landing is safe from the sole remaining dragon, or they're weapons of mass destruction who would've annihilated the 10 ships that "ambushed" them and Danny can take Kings Landing at her leisure. As you say, they can't have it both ways.

EDIT: To top it off, one of the numpty show runners claimed that Danny simply forgot about the Iron Fleet. Yep. She forgot about it despite mentioning it earlier in the episode as something they need to account for. Then there's also the question of how Danny's entourage even managed to A) regroup on Dragonstone (an island) without the Iron Fleet immediately dropping the Golden Company on them or B) how they then managed to sail back and forth across Blackwater Bay at their leisure despite their fleet being wiped out and the Bay being held by the Iron Fleet. One would assume they'd have been blockaded by the Iron Fleet and their rapid firing, heat-seeking, anti-dragon rail guns.

The same goes for telling me you've assembled a host of brilliant soldiers, fighters, and experienced warriors, and then organising the Battle for Winterfell in the stupidest way humanly possible. They're either brilliant leaders and fighters or they're fucking imbeciles. You can't have it both ways.

Those tactics -- such as they were -- were infuriatingly dumb. To make it worse, after sending them off on some suicidal madcap charge-of-the-light-brigade style manoeuvre as their opening move, apparently thousands of Dothraki (half?) survived that dumb charge. Somehow. Bitch say what? They dead. They all dead. They deader than the Wallabies post-2002 Bledisloe Cup hopes. But the plot will likely need Danny to have some remaining warriors for the next episode, so there they are. If not, then it's just plain dumb.

There are set rules for war, the bombing of the sept was not a war, in the battle of the bastards Jon Snow could have killed Ramsey when he rode out to parley, he didn't because that would breach the protocol that we have seen throughout the other series.

The tactics for the outriders to keep the white walkers as far away from the gates as possible you mean, so the Dragon could burn them without burning their own men, yeah shit tactics. What I do take issue with is that some of the dothraki survived, otherwise a classic sacrificial move.

[Stom]

I don't really get the complaints, from you or that I've seen elesewhere.

The characters are behaving in character.

The logistics have been glossed over a bit, but it really wasn't necessary to have 5 episodes of someone journeying from one place to another this season because there's basically 1 set of events rather than half a dozen.

No they haven't. Cersei, for instance, doesn't kill Tyrion and Danny when she has ample opportunity at their parley outside Kings Landing. She absolutely hates Tyrion with a vengeance, and doesn't at ll care about playing by any rules, as evident when she bombed the Sept in a 'genius' move. She shouldn't even be alive after that bombing, but she is, and doesn't seem to suffer from consequences to her actions anymore. That being the case, why would she not just have every archer and scorpion fire on them all, then send out her soldiers to make sure they're all dead? All of her problems would seem to have been over. Danny is dead, along with her last dragon, so there's no real threat to her throne anymore as the North is happy to stay in the North, and no one else seems to care that she's somehow queen. She also gets to kill Tyrion and fulfil a very personal vendetta. Win-win for her. Instead she lets them walk away for some reason after killing Danny's Google Translator. Why? Because it would be all over if she acted in-character, so the plot demands she doesn't.

Some other out of character examples since the books were overtaken or ignored:

• To continue with Cersei, she's suddenly become a political mastermind instead of being the overconfident amateur she is. See her decision to bomb the Sept and not to partake in the Long Night Brief Evening;
• All of the previously politically savvy characters -- Tyrion, Varys and Littlefinger -- became dumb and useless. Varys does f*ck all. Littlefinger thought giving Sansa away to a psychopath was a good idea. Tyrion counsels not to immediately attack Kings Landing with three dragons, and a complete army of Dothraki and Unsullied, after defeating a Lannister army two days march from the city;
• Everyone on team Danny deciding to engage in a pointless siege instead of just killing Cersei via Seal Team Arya or just Bran;
• Davos being totally cool with potentially starving out his home city, despite his deeming starvation to be just about the worst way to die;
• The Iron Bank decides that the narcissistic alcoholic mayor of Kings Landing is a better bet than the contender with three dragons;
• Ramsay Bolton quickly escalates from a rabid psycho into a Mary Sue/Marty Stu;
• The North does not remember, nor care, about Ned's legacy so don't rise up against aforementioned Marty Stu psycho in support of his children;
• Stannis Baratheon burning his daughter;
• The Sand Snakes deciding that the best way to avenge a death in their family is to kill their family;
• As touched on above, just about the entire population of Westeros absolutely not giving a single f*ck that Cersei murdered two prominent lords of the realm (including her uncle), the popular queen and the popular pope.

To name but a few.

What has annoyed me is that there has been an awfully heavy hand of plot leaning on the scales. The death of the dragon last week required it to be sniped, three times in three shots, from a ridiculous distance. I read an article where someone did the maths and in order for it to reach and cover the distance, the projectiles had to be supersonic as well as inhumanly aimed to hit a small target without any wind effect from a scorpion mounted on a floating platform. Not to mention that the fleet managed to hide from an aerial force.

But you can quite easily say that's nitpicking and I'll buy that - call it a fun romp and let's not worry about the physical plausibility of deadeye scorpions firing over a mile when it's a world where there are dragons and zombies. Fair enough - I'll buy that.

What you can't then do is have a massive arsenal of the same scorpions fail to hit or even present any threat to a dragon next episode. You can't have it both ways - either the scorpions can kill a dragon because they're that badass, or riding a dragon is such a sure thing that you can charge a hundred of them and dodge all of the bolts without them even posing a slight risk.

Exactly. There's no consistency in power levels. Between E4 and E5 the scorpions transform from rapid firing, heat-seeking rail guns to slow loading water pistols because that's what the plot demands. Similarly, the dragons go from being scaled up ducks into being weapons of mass destruction because that's what the plot demands. Either they're large ducks facing rapid firing rail guns, and Kings Landing is safe from the sole remaining dragon, or they're weapons of mass destruction who would've annihilated the 10 ships that "ambushed" them and Danny can take Kings Landing at her leisure. As you say, they can't have it both ways.

EDIT: To top it off, one of the numpty show runners claimed that Danny simply forgot about the Iron Fleet. Yep. She forgot about it despite mentioning it earlier in the episode as something they need to account for. Then there's also the question of how Danny's entourage even managed to A) regroup on Dragonstone (an island) without the Iron Fleet immediately dropping the Golden Company on them or B) how they then managed to sail back and forth across Blackwater Bay at their leisure despite their fleet being wiped out and the Bay being held by the Iron Fleet. One would assume they'd have been blockaded by the Iron Fleet and their rapid firing, heat-seeking, anti-dragon rail guns.

The same goes for telling me you've assembled a host of brilliant soldiers, fighters, and experienced warriors, and then organising the Battle for Winterfell in the stupidest way humanly possible. They're either brilliant leaders and fighters or they're fucking imbeciles. You can't have it both ways.

Those tactics -- such as they were -- were infuriatingly dumb. To make it worse, after sending them off on some suicidal madcap charge-of-the-light-brigade style manoeuvre as their opening move, apparently thousands of Dothraki (half?) survived that dumb charge. Somehow. Bitch say what? They dead. They all dead. They deader than the Wallabies post-2002 Bledisloe Cup hopes. But the plot will likely need Danny to have some remaining warriors for the next episode, so there they are. If not, then it's just plain dumb.

There are set rules for war, the bombing of the sept was not a war, in the battle of the bastards Jon Snow could have killed Ramsey when he rode out to parley, he didn't because that would breach the protocol that we have seen throughout the other series.

The tactics for the outriders to keep the white walkers as far away from the gates as possible you mean, so the Dragon could burn them without burning their own men, yeah shit tactics. What I do take issue with is that some of the dothraki survived, otherwise a classic sacrificial move.

I generally don't care about the battles in a fantasy. But the destruction of seemingly all, or all except a personal guard, of the dothraki, plus a metric fuck-tonne of unsullied, only to have them respawn later... That I do take issue with. It is lazy.

[zer0]

There are set rules for war, the bombing of the sept was not a war, in the battle of the bastards Jon Snow could have killed Ramsey when he rode out to parley, he didn't because that would breach the protocol that we have seen throughout the other series.

There are also set rules to feudalism. You can't, for instance, just blatantly murder the pope, the queen, two lord paramount's and numerous other minor lords and knights just because you don't like them. Or proclaim yourself queen regnant with a claim no better than "I was wot married to the king, innit". Doing one of those things is a bad idea. Doing both, and surviving without any real blow back, is more than a little silly. Especially as it's Cersei where a major part of her character is not being anywhere near as smart as she thinks she is. It really should've led to her swift overthrow, and death, at the hands of an angry mob of peasants.

Jon not killing Marty Stu Bolton makes sense because he's not an asshole and abides by protocol, as you say*. Cercei, on the other hand, murdered a bunch of people, including her uncle, basically just because she didn't like them. If she's willing to violate feudal rules to kill Margery -- a vassal/ally who she knew for all of 10 minutes -- and to just generally get what she wants, then she'll definitely break any rules to kill Tyrion, an enemy, who she hates far more than anyone else. Plus at that point the scorpions were heat-seeking, rapid-firing, railguns. And she had a lot of them. The cost/benefit ration for breaking protocol and murdering Danny, Tyrion and the dragon then and there is far more in her favour than the sept bombing.

*Although there are other problems with the Northern plot. Namely the North not giving a general f*ck about Ned's legacy.

[zer0]

The tactics for the outriders to keep the white walkers as far away from the gates as possible you mean, so the Dragon could burn them without burning their own men, yeah shit tactics. What I do take issue with is that some of the dothraki survived, otherwise a classic sacrificial move.

Yeah, sending the majority of your defenders to sally forth in an open charge against an alerted and overwhelmingly large besieging force is generally considered to be a bit of a tactical no-no. That they're light cavalry elevates it to literal charge of the light brigade stuff.

It'd make much more sense to have their fire trench positioned like a moat at the base of the walls, then park everyone on, or behind, the double curtain walls of Winterfell and defend it like an actual castle. The Dothraki have a lot of archers. Dismount them and disperse them along the walls with dragonglass tipped and/or fire arrows, and supplement them with the Westerosi archers. Deploy the Unsullied in tight phalanx formations in the yards where the wights won't be able to easily human wave them. Heavily armoured Vale knights along the walls and in choke points such as doorways.

Do all that and the dragons can then sit on the walls/towers, or fly overhead in close support, and just freely burn wights until the Others are forced to change things up/make an appearance. There's no defenders outside the walls, so there's no danger of friendly fire, and the fire moat will make it exceptionally difficult -- potentially impossible if wight flammability were consistent -- for them to scale the walls without intervention from the Others, which would presumably leave them someway vulnerable to attack.

But no. They send them off in a suicidal charge that buys 10 minutes, but makes a cool piece of cinematography.

[zer0]

I generally don't care about the battles in a fantasy. But the destruction of seemingly all, or all except a personal guard, of the dothraki, plus a metric fuck-tonne of unsullied, only to have them respawn later... That I do take issue with. It is lazy.

Absolutely agree about the respawning Dothraki and Unsullied. The Dothraki apparently being model citizens after she dies is also absurd. Once the khal dies their blood riders do one of two things. They off themselves or they avenge their khal and die trying, or succeed, and then off themselves. Danny named them all her blood riders so, theoretically, they should all be out to kill Jon ASAP before indulging in some mass suicide (I'm assuming the Unsullied wouldn't do much to stop them, or would do the job themselves).

But even if they drop that part -- which they must have given there's not a swarm of blood riders trying to kill Danny after she kills all the khal's in Vaes Dothrak -- they would, at the least, disintegrate into warring clans/factions that begin terrorising Westeros as this is already established in-show (see the end of Drogo's khalasar).

After they, or the Unsullied, kill Jon that is. That part seems as though it'd be pretty non-negotiable.

[Sandydragon]

In some ways I was dreading the finale, it was always going to be a bit disappointing. That said, the image of the last Targaryan heading into the wilderness after the impact his family had had on Westeros for centuries was a good one.

But the last 2 seasons have been rushed. I don't necessarily object to the overall story, just that on occasions it has been poorly developed. Out of 6 episodes, we spend 2 in the final season having tender moments wondering who is dead meat, then within 3.5 episodes the entire show is wrapped up.

I understand why Jon Snow wasn't roasted or ripped apart following the murder of Dany, but I don't understand why the Dothraki or Unsullied were so merciful, especially the former. Equally, I agree that it seems absurd that so many Dothraki were needlessly slaughtered in the defence of Winterfell, yet there were still thousands left.

Also, just how powerful were the dragons? One moment they are looking very frail, the next a city is destroyed by just one.

I did think that the Clegane bowl story was good and the death of Cersei was appropriate. Jamie was always going to be drawn back and a common death under tons of rubble was appropriate for such a power hungry dictator.

Dany's transformation could have been better handled, but the seeds of her insanity were there all along. Her sudden aerial destruction of Kings Landing was a bit sudden, but the fact she was capable of doing such a thing wasn't a surprise.

I still rate this as one of the best shows I've seen, but the strength lay in the first 4 seasons where there was some political craft to go alongside the fighting; whilst undoubtably honourable, Jon Snow must rank as one of the least deserving winning commanders of all time.

[Sandydragon]

The tactics for the outriders to keep the white walkers as far away from the gates as possible you mean, so the Dragon could burn them without burning their own men, yeah shit tactics. What I do take issue with is that some of the dothraki survived, otherwise a classic sacrificial move.

Yeah, sending the majority of your defenders to sally forth in an open charge against an alerted and overwhelmingly large besieging force is generally considered to be a bit of a tactical no-no. That they're light cavalry elevates it to literal charge of the light brigade stuff.

It'd make much more sense to have their fire trench positioned like a moat at the base of the walls, then park everyone on, or behind, the double curtain walls of Winterfell and defend it like an actual castle. The Dothraki have a lot of archers. Dismount them and disperse them along the walls with dragonglass tipped and/or fire arrows, and supplement them with the Westerosi archers. Deploy the Unsullied in tight phalanx formations in the yards where the wights won't be able to easily human wave them. Heavily armoured Vale knights along the walls and in choke points such as doorways.

Do all that and the dragons can then sit on the walls/towers, or fly overhead in close support, and just freely burn wights until the Others are forced to change things up/make an appearance. There's no defenders outside the walls, so there's no danger of friendly fire, and the fire moat will make it exceptionally difficult -- potentially impossible if wight flammability were consistent -- for them to scale the walls without intervention from the Others, which would presumably leave them someway vulnerable to attack.

But no. They send them off in a suicidal charge that buys 10 minutes, but makes a cool piece of cinematography.

Personally, I would have evacuated WInterfell of non-combatants, placed well disciplined troops on the walls and looked to defensive structures to slow the attackers down before the walls. Then used the Dothraki to attack the flanks and rear in a series of raids. The wild charge looked good but had zero military sense.

[Sandydragon]

Noting the discussion about Stannis Baratheon's decision to burn his only daughter. Whilst he evidently had feelings for her, it was also very clear throughout that he saw himself as rightful king and would happily kill his own family to achieve that aim. In a fit of desperation, with this previously reliable witch advising him that it would work, I can absolutely see how a power hungry man could do that.