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ORIGINAL: Zorch

ORIGINAL: warspite1

ORIGINAL: Zorch

How could you possibly confuzzle Max and Maximilian?

warspite1

Well they're both called Maximilian Schell and both were in Cross of Iron, except Max von Sydow

If Monty had been in command we'd still be waiting for a battle. [:D]

warspite1

They should've lined up Monty and MacArthur. Never mind Battle of the Bastards - this would've been known as Battle of the giant egotistical preening prima donnas....

ORIGINAL: warspite1

Personally I have nothing against the ending (with perhaps one exception). The problem – as mentioned previously – is the pacing and thus the story telling.

...

To me the gap is that in the last season Daenerys lacked any real agency until her version of the Nuremburg rally at the end.

By that I mean she almost never had the chance to do anything but react/respond or have people decide what her motives were?

At the end I don't think she was mad in any real sense of that word. In her own terms she was chillingly rational and had been all series. At the core, she had absorbed a fundamentally totalitarian world view, and with the usual side-order of being able to commit any crime as it is all done to make a better world for everyone (well everyone your chosen ideology can accommodate).

I think the equivalent of an extra episode in between beating the undead and her burning down Kings Landing would have allowed some of that to be better explored ... and given how good the series has been on issues around the nature/purpose of power a good fit?

ORIGINAL: warspite1

And as for what followed…..

So Jon has killed someone who is effectively a goddess to the Dothraki and the saviour to the Unsullied , who are programmed to fight to the death for her. Oh and where the hell did all those Unsullied come from? Despite the Harpies, the Undead, and the Lannisters, there were more Unsullied at the end than when Daenerys freed them from that old weasel in Astaphor or wherever it was. But I digress, so after Jon has slain their Queen what happens? He’s locked up instead of being hung, drawn and quartered… of course. “Mr Snow?” “Aye, appen as maybe”. “I’m arresting you sunshine on suspicion of Regicide… you have the right to remain silent……”.

But it gets worse. Tyrion – who betrayed the MoD remember - is brought before the gathering of familiar faces from previous episodes/series under armed guard led by Grey Worm. Who is Grey Worm taking orders from to do this? His Queen has been brutally slain in her hour of triumph but Grey Worm – apart from shouting a little bit at Tyrion and tells him he’s not here to speak – is then content to allow Tyrion to conduct proceedings…..

I guess the question is what does one do when one's savior/goddess is dead and you are effectively under siege in a wrecked foreign city by forces that probably outnumbered you when you first reached King's Landing and are growing each day? By moving all of their troops into King's Landing, and likely dependent upon supplies from the Northern armies (who now besiege them), the Unsullied and Dothraki were probably in a situation growing more dire each week.

While fierce in battle, the Dothraki were cold-blooded when it came to their leaders - recall the end of Season 1 when they abandoned the camp the very night Khal Drogo became incapacitated. In this case, their Khaleesi is dead and they are running out of food (courtesy of Khaleesi and her dragon).

As for the Unsullied, they are not automatons. Gray Worm was not appointed their leader - they elected him (Season 2, I recall), meaning they were capable of independent and rational thought. Gray Worm had already recognized that they would have no place in Westeros once Daenerys had taken the Iron Throne; now that she was dead they were really in the wrong place at the wrong time. Leaderless, facing a besieging force, and with supplies running out, the Unsullied had to find a way to negotiate their way out.

This made Jon/Aegon and Tyrion less prisoners than hostages. Ser Davos offers the Unsullied land of their own in Westeros - so the negotiation begins.

This is where my frustration builds. The show's creators needed to include scenes of the immediate aftermath to Daenerys' death: Gray Worm and the Unsullied discovering Daenerys and Drogon gone, with a huge blood stain on the floor, the melted lump that used to be the Iron Throne, and Jon/Aegon in grief. They needed to show conversations amongst the Unsullied and even the Dothraki that touched upon rage (he murdered our Khaleesi), unease (the Northern armies who outnumber us have withdrawn to outside what's left of the city walls), and even dread (the little food left inside the city is disappearing and how the hell do we get out of this place). Such scenes would have set up what ultimately happened in the the grand council scene.

Yeah it is sad to see Jon killed her, at first I wouldn't think he would. But is pissed off a lot of fans out there and over 500 fans sign something want this remade something more straight forward. Well it already done, cant undo it.

But however I did enjoy watching all seven seasons, but I hated the last one. Dunno if I will buy that dvd collection along with my seven seasons.

Btw my favorite series is Babylon 5, got all of them on dvd. It was pretty good, all the way til the end. I didn't really care for star trek series or other any other sci-fi. I did however like Witchblade and Westworld, pretty good series. Battlestar Galactia (new) wasn't too bad, but okay.

I kept hoping for The Hound to pop up and say something to the effect of, "I'm a big blanker and hard to kill!" with a few more burn scars, but now not as afraid of fire and a little more confident of being a better person.

ORIGINAL: KurtC

I kept hoping for The Hound to pop up and say something to the effect of, "I'm a big blanker and hard to kill!" with a few more burn scars, but now not as afraid of fire and a little more confident of being a better person.

+1
If anyone could survive that, it's the Hound.

ORIGINAL: Zorch

ORIGINAL: warspite1

*EDIT - no the other one it was Max von Sydow

How could you possibly confuzzle Max and Maximilian?

It is a little known secret that Max von Sydow was the body double for Steve McQueen in his early films. Here he is in an outtake from The Blob.

and so it goes on, and on, then on some more,

Game of Thrones prequel, in filming atm,...

ORIGINAL: Zorch

ORIGINAL: KurtC

I kept hoping for The Hound to pop up and say something to the effect of, "I'm a big blanker and hard to kill!" with a few more burn scars, but now not as afraid of fire and a little more confident of being a better person.

+1
If anyone could survive that, it's the Hound.

He could have bounced off the mountain breaking his fall, and then landed in some kind of shelter from the fire. I know it can happen!

ORIGINAL: loki100

ORIGINAL: warspite1

Personally I have nothing against the ending (with perhaps one exception). The problem – as mentioned previously – is the pacing and thus the story telling.

...

To me the gap is that in the last season Daenerys lacked any real agency until her version of the Nuremburg rally at the end.

By that I mean she almost never had the chance to do anything but react/respond or have people decide what her motives were?

At the end I don't think she was mad in any real sense of that word. In her own terms she was chillingly rational and had been all series. At the core, she had absorbed a fundamentally totalitarian world view, and with the usual side-order of being able to commit any crime as it is all done to make a better world for everyone (well everyone your chosen ideology can accommodate).

I think the equivalent of an extra episode in between beating the undead and her burning down Kings Landing would have allowed some of that to be better explored ... and given how good the series has been on issues around the nature/purpose of power a good fit?

warspite1

Ah the age old question; is someone mad or just evil? Its an interesting point. I think its easier to accept the excesses of someone like Hitler or Heydrich etc. by believing they were mad (to a greater or lesser extent). The alternative is pretty chilling. Ultimately though it's more about the results of an action rather than some convenient bucket to place someone in. I agree that in GoT Daenerys probably wasn't mad. She a genuine belief that her way was right and that the people don't get a choice.

ORIGINAL: bomccarthy

ORIGINAL: warspite1

And as for what followed…..

So Jon has killed someone who is effectively a goddess to the Dothraki and the saviour to the Unsullied , who are programmed to fight to the death for her. Oh and where the hell did all those Unsullied come from? Despite the Harpies, the Undead, and the Lannisters, there were more Unsullied at the end than when Daenerys freed them from that old weasel in Astaphor or wherever it was. But I digress, so after Jon has slain their Queen what happens? He’s locked up instead of being hung, drawn and quartered… of course. “Mr Snow?” “Aye, appen as maybe”. “I’m arresting you sunshine on suspicion of Regicide… you have the right to remain silent……”.

But it gets worse. Tyrion – who betrayed the MoD remember - is brought before the gathering of familiar faces from previous episodes/series under armed guard led by Grey Worm. Who is Grey Worm taking orders from to do this? His Queen has been brutally slain in her hour of triumph but Grey Worm – apart from shouting a little bit at Tyrion and tells him he’s not here to speak – is then content to allow Tyrion to conduct proceedings…..

I guess the question is what does one do when one's savior/goddess is dead and you are effectively under siege in a wrecked foreign city by forces that probably outnumbered you when you first reached King's Landing and are growing each day? By moving all of their troops into King's Landing, and likely dependent upon supplies from the Northern armies (who now besiege them), the Unsullied and Dothraki were probably in a situation growing more dire each week.

While fierce in battle, the Dothraki were cold-blooded when it came to their leaders - recall the end of Season 1 when they abandoned the camp the very night Khal Drogo became incapacitated. In this case, their Khaleesi is dead and they are running out of food (courtesy of Khaleesi and her dragon).

As for the Unsullied, they are not automatons. Gray Worm was not appointed their leader - they elected him (Season 2, I recall), meaning they were capable of independent and rational thought. Gray Worm had already recognized that they would have no place in Westeros once Daenerys had taken the Iron Throne; now that she was dead they were really in the wrong place at the wrong time. Leaderless, facing a besieging force, and with supplies running out, the Unsullied had to find a way to negotiate their way out.

This made Jon/Aegon and Tyrion less prisoners than hostages. Ser Davos offers the Unsullied land of their own in Westeros - so the negotiation begins.

This is where my frustration builds. The show's creators needed to include scenes of the immediate aftermath to Daenerys' death: Gray Worm and the Unsullied discovering Daenerys and Drogon gone, with a huge blood stain on the floor, the melted lump that used to be the Iron Throne, and Jon/Aegon in grief. They needed to show conversations amongst the Unsullied and even the Dothraki that touched upon rage (he murdered our Khaleesi), unease (the Northern armies who outnumber us have withdrawn to outside what's left of the city walls), and even dread (the little food left inside the city is disappearing and how the hell do we get out of this place). Such scenes would have set up what ultimately happened in the the grand council scene.

warspite1

Given what Daenerys was to the Unsullied and Dothraki I just don’t see how Jon Snow would have survived capture – at least not intact anyway.

And if we ignore the anomaly of the rapidly multiplying numbers, why would the forces ranged against them be that much greater? It would have taken ages to reach King’s Landing. Those troops – mostly survivors of the fight with the NK, have no way of knowing if Drogon has gone for good or just gone to a funeral and will be back for vengeance shortly. Getting together enough men to overwhelm the deadly Dothraki and Unsullied would surely be far from certain?

I take your point about the Dothraki and the Khals. But Daenerys isn’t a Khal. In front of the Dothraki she immolated the Khals and came out of the furnace fully intact. Some of those have seen her do this neat little trick twice. She is surely more a Goddess than a run-of-the-mill Khal?

I would need to go back to the description of the Unsullied, but I suspect they are effectively automatons – that was their training - and they have been freed by the MoD. But as you say, they are led by the MoD’s right hand man, the man besotted with Missandei, and who has seen her executed. On the word of the Queen he was more than happy to continue the fighting after the surrender and to then execute PoW’s without question. I don’t think his character would have thought twice about putting an end to Jon Snow in the most painful way imaginable.

The final point you make is I think universal – it’s not necessarily what the makers delivered – it’s in the p*** poor delivery itself.

Final points from me that has been nagging away since yesterday.

Firstly, and I mentioned this before when not knowing that the Night’s Watch would remain in existence. What the hell for? The Wildlings and the North now have a bond. They choose to go back north of the wall. Fine. But what does Tormund think when the Night’s Watch start to man the castles once more and rebuild the wall? Can he expect raiding parties when the North decide they don’t like the Wildlings anymore? Tyrion explained it with a simplistic (I paraphrase) “there will always be a need to find a home for criminals and bastard sons”. Well yes, but that is not the totally redundant Night Watch for whom there would literally be nothing to do on a daily basis……

Secondly, Sansa decides (and the ‘council’ agrees) that the North will be an independent Kingdom on Westeros. So am I right in thinking the (melted) Iron Throne rules over the 6 Kingdoms and that there is no political link between the two? If so then what in the name of Bonaparte’s balls were the northern contingent on that council, voting on who would be the next ruler? As soon as it was agreed that the north had left the United (six) Kingdoms then they would have absolutely NO right to any say in what happened to the south.

And again trying to bring some sort of real life thinking into this, the position would be that the north is now a separate Kingdom ruled by a Stark – but a Stark is conveniently now installed at King’s Landing. Totally and utterly unrealistic to the people from south of ‘the north’ surely??

IIIrd Reich had put his last marks in Wacht am Rhein, Game of Thrones put $ 15 million in episode 3 and did not have enough money for another battle.
Without money, it always ends poorly.

ORIGINAL: rico21

IIIrd Reich had put his last marks in Wacht am Rhein, Game of Thrones put $ 15 million in episode 3 and did not have enough money for another battle.
Without money, it always ends poorly.

warspite1

Well that is the first time I've heard anyone suggest the problems of Season 8 were the lack of a battle scene. The battles were fine (granted the tactics were rubbish) it was the dialogue - or lack thereof - caused by the limited number of episodes and the pacing of the key events that was the issue. Even if six episodes was not for negotiation, how much money would it have cost to merge episode 1 and 2 into one and then flesh out the character dialogue leading up to the final denouement. Daenery's actions needed better explanation, Varys' machinations deserved more time, Jamie's battle between good and bad needed more time, the contrived ending of Euron was pointless - just have him immolated with the fleet instead of some half-arsed fight as he turns up on the beach just as Jaime is on his way to Cersei, and I'm sure there were others - but most of all make the Jon/Dany scene spectacular and unexpected - not some 5 minute afterthought - "scratch one MoD".

Well, Game of Thrones is about power, power has to be taken, not ask it. So all the whim of why they're going to hit their competitors are secondary.
A prequel series is currently shooting.

ORIGINAL: warspite1

Firstly, and I mentioned this before when not knowing that the Night’s Watch would remain in existence. What the hell for? The Wildlings and the North now have a bond. They choose to go back north of the wall. Fine. But what does Tormund think when the Night’s Watch start to man the castles once more and rebuild the wall? Can he expect raiding parties when the North decide they don’t like the Wildlings anymore? Tyrion explained it with a simplistic (I paraphrase) “there will always be a need to find a home for criminals and bastard sons”. Well yes, but that is not the totally redundant Night Watch for whom there would literally be nothing to do on a daily basis……

The history of the White Walkers is embedded in the saga of the North. It's happened before the GOT timeline and I suspect there's every reason to believe that sensible minds think it will happen again. Who knows if their next 'visit' will be in 1000 years or merely a hundred? Rebuilding the wall may not be necessary *tomorrow*, but the planning for rebuilding and remanning the wall needs to start soon. In the LONG view, the Knight's Watch is not redundant and rebuilding the institution should be a reasonable priority.

What struck me about the scene where they're walking into the North with the Wildlings was the staged green shoot emerging from the snow. As if it was portending propitious growing conditions and the promise of warm Spring weather soon. Wasn't Winter coming? Did the rise of the White Walkers coincide with the peak of Winter conditions and it's Spring already? Didn't these Winters last hundreds of years?

Secondly, Sansa decides (and the ‘council’ agrees) that the North will be an independent Kingdom on Westeros. So am I right in thinking the (melted) Iron Throne rules over the 6 Kingdoms and that there is no political link between the two? If so then what in the name of Bonaparte’s balls were the northern contingent on that council, voting on who would be the next ruler? As soon as it was agreed that the north had left the United (six) Kingdoms then they would have absolutely NO right to any say in what happened to the south.

And again trying to bring some sort of real life thinking into this, the position would be that the north is now a separate Kingdom ruled by a Stark – but a Stark is conveniently now installed at King’s Landing. Totally and utterly unrealistic to the people from south of ‘the north’ surely??

I hadn't thought of it in exactly that way, but I agree. The North stuffed the ballot box and no one said a thing about it. BTW was anyone present speaking for whatever remained of the Lannisters' interests?

As a non-sequitor, how are European Parliamentary elections going? I'm sure the "Southerners" have a view about how the "Northerners" should be able to vote in their future continental leadership. [;)] I jest, but I can't imagine that there's not some aside regarding current European political machinations about direction and leadership that are relevant to the writers. Granted, they botched those analogies and lead in to that too, but I think that may have been a nod to current realpolitik.

ORIGINAL: rico21

Well, Game of Thrones is about power, power has to be taken, not ask it. So all the whim of why they're going to hit their competitors are secondary.
A prequel series is currently shooting.

warspite1

Well I don't think that is the strength of GoT - which has been more about superb character development, political intrigue, Beeewwwbs, clever plots, and sub-plots, betrayal, madness, intrigue, SSEEEAAANNN BBBEEAANN!!, more beeewwwbs, torture, and of course military action as and when required. The 'whim' i.e. the motivations, of why these characters are fighting, plotting etc is absolutely primary - as it should be.

ORIGINAL: warspite1

ORIGINAL: rico21

Well, Game of Thrones is about power, power has to be taken, not ask it. So all the whim of why they're going to hit their competitors are secondary.
A prequel series is currently shooting.

warspite1

Well I don't think that is the strength of GoT - which has been more about superb character development, political intrigue, Beeewwwbs, clever plots, and sub-plots, betrayal, madness, intrigue, SSEEEAAANNN BBBEEAANN!!, more beeewwwbs, torture, and of course military action as and when required. The 'whim' i.e. the motivations, of why these characters are fighting, plotting etc is absolutely primary - as it should be.

Series 8 definitely needed more gratuitous beeewwwbs. That's the whole problem right there.
Perhaps a post battle orgy at Winterfell?

ORIGINAL: Zorch

ORIGINAL: warspite1

ORIGINAL: rico21

Well, Game of Thrones is about power, power has to be taken, not ask it. So all the whim of why they're going to hit their competitors are secondary.
A prequel series is currently shooting.

warspite1

Well I don't think that is the strength of GoT - which has been more about superb character development, political intrigue, Beeewwwbs, clever plots, and sub-plots, betrayal, madness, intrigue, SSEEEAAANNN BBBEEAANN!!, more beeewwwbs, torture, and of course military action as and when required. The 'whim' i.e. the motivations, of why these characters are fighting, plotting etc is absolutely primary - as it should be.

Series 8 definitely needed more gratuitous beeewwwbs. That's the whole problem right there.
Perhaps a post battle orgy at Winterfell?

Mrs. Chickenboy and I have long vowed to keep any conspicuous watching of this series from the wee ones in the household. My son does have a long-standing affection for dragons, so we allowed him to watch an edited version of Drogon's aerial flambe' of King's Landing. It was pretty well done and clearly CGI (no King's Landing commoners were killed by dragonfire in this episode) in its portrayal.

But there was nothing in the final episode that was even remotely gratuitous or graphic-neither sex nor violence. Daenrys got shivved, as expected, but it was uncomfortably aseptic. A small pencil-thin rivulet of blood from her mouth and nose? C'mon. I've seen worse in black and white movies 80 years old. [8|]

Drogon now working in a French restaurant doing flambe on demand.

Edit: that didn't work out. It seems Drogon lacked certain client relationship skills...he is now working in a firefighter training institute.

ORIGINAL: warspite1

ORIGINAL: rico21

Well, Game of Thrones is about power, power has to be taken, not ask it. So all the whim of why they're going to hit their competitors are secondary.
A prequel series is currently shooting.

warspite1

Well I don't think that is the strength of GoT - which has been more about superb character development, political intrigue, Beeewwwbs, clever plots, and sub-plots, betrayal, madness, intrigue, SSEEEAAANNN BBBEEAANN!!, more beeewwwbs, torture, and of course military action as and when required. The 'whim' i.e. the motivations, of why these characters are fighting, plotting etc is absolutely primary - as it should be.

Well, we have the forums for that![:D]