Same here. I keep up on the episodes and what happens so I can talk about it a bit with some of my friends, but I've only read the first book and seen up to the second episode of season two. It's got a pretty good story, but is a tad intense at times in a couple of ways.
People need to get over themselves. If they don't like just don't watch it. Instead of whining about it.
Nah making memes and meme petitions about how rubbish it's gotten and supporting the actors and directors who are making this thing worth watching is what we're still here for It still helps to watch and level complaints at DnD for being horrible writers and showrunners ("we didn't have time to make this one scene good because we were busy playing iPhone games with naked lady extras!") and, with enough luck, anything with their name attached will sink. "Daenerys kinda just forgot about the Iron Fleet..." said David Benioff, in reference to an episode where Daenerys had mentioned the Iron Fleet multiple times and how much of a threat it posed, especially while stationed in King's Landing, right next to Dragonstone.
gods what a stupid ending I hate looking like I only complain but this show, the actors, everyone involved deserved better than this. Season 8 was a steaming pile of dog crap. I was promised a bittersweet ending. This is just bitter. Even our last 2 battle episodes have taken their place as the worst episodes of the show. Ugh. Some pointers... Jon's secret parentage meant nothing despite all of these seasons of build-up. Jon doesn't get to choose not to be King. He killed the Queen he fought for, deal with that mess you've just created instead of running from it. That Drogon melting the Iron Throne scene was stupid. Jon should have been burned to death right there and then. Would have been better than what we got ("I'M JOINING THE NON-EXISTENT POINTLESS NIGHT'S WATCH!") Bran is King? Really?? Mr. "I'm the 3ER now I don't want to be lord or King of anything"??? Not Gendry, you know, the one with the actual claim through Baratheon and Targaryen descent??? Grey Worm went to Naath. I suppose they don't want to show us the bit where he dies of Butterfly Plague, a disease spread by the island's butterflies that kills all of the island's visitors? Screw DnD for thinking this up and screw HBO for letting them butcher my favourite TV show of all time. Bloody kneelers. I'm going to rewatch Lord of the Rings and cleanse my brain with a fantasy story with a good ending. At least Ghost got petted.
I dislike that Grey Worm had so much power in this finale. Yea he's general of the unsullied which pretty down to 5,000 then Dothraki is a medium/small size Calvary unit. So them holding a broken city was no leverage..... So I hope Grey Worm dies from Butterfly plague lol I was expecting a Romeo & Juliet type death scene but that would seem too predictable in the end... Sending him to the Night's watch was little lame cause out of all of the characters He did what had to be done and pay the price for it. Would I've like see him on the Throne or in some capacity help run the 6 kingdoms from a Council position yes. Yara at the end is great "I stand by are queen".. dude you weren't even there during Battle of Kingslanding..... The only thing I really like is Sansa standing her ground saying "The North has suffered enough out of this and will stay independent."
That was nothing short of hot garbage. I thought the Heroes Reborn season was bad. Well it was and this one was terrible.
I was not impressed either. It had the feel that they just wanted it to end and get the heck out of town as fast as they could.
Awful. I really liked the Iron Throne melting, but Drogon should have logically killed Jon immediately before or during the process. And the Night's Watch isn't even a real punishment anymore. Bran is not King. That is ridiculous. Sansa spends two straight seasons whining and whining and gets exactly what she wants? How unsatisfying and utterly nonsensical. EDIT: And the jokes. Why all the stupid jokes? They were out of place in a heavily dramatic series. EDIT 2: Oh, and far too much other minor feel-good stuff. How cute that they brought everyone together to council for the King... sorry, why is Brianne there? Oh, look and the Small Council now has everyone promoted to their best positions. How lovely. Just dumb. I do like the emphasis of Varys as Tyrion's best friend, though; I'll give them that. I agree with most of your post, but this is more than a bit nit-picky... as far as I can remember, the show never mentioned any such plague. While the show mirrors the books and takes most of its dialogue from them in the early seasons, it doesn't make sense to assume they are the exact same world and stories. Momma Stark isn't undead, and Naath doesn't have to have deadly butterflies. Grey Worm going to Naath was a testament to his love and plenty sensible. I honestly loved Grey Worm's role in the last season (though, if Drogon (somehow) didn't kill Jon after Jon murdered Dany, Grey Worm would've murdered Jon on sight, not imprisoned him). This episode was bad, yes. But give credit where credit is due. I place "The Bells" as a top ten (if not top five) episode without a doubt. Plus, let's be real. The real worst episode of the series is either this last one or the first episode of season 8, which was utterly stupid.
It was implied that Brienne is the new Lord Commander of the Kingsguard (Ser Pod was definitely one). It is tradition that the Lord Commander of the Kingsguard sits on the Small Council - the exception being Ser Barristan Selmy, who King Robert didn't allow on it because Barristan fought for King Aerys. Barristan comments on it Season 3, something along the lines of "King Robert never put me on the Small Council. He allowed me to retain my position on the Kingsguard and I became Lord Commander, but he never forgave me. Just as well, because I always hated the politics." It's a fitting end for Brienne, to be honest. As fitting as it can be when DnD already ruined her 'Beauty and the Beast' story. Eh, IMO there's not any reason to change such a detail and it can be assumed that the butterflies remain unchanged. And in my head I've made it so, because it's quite morbidly funny to me that Grey Worm would honour his pledge to Missandei that he'd protect her homeland even though she's dead, reach land, and instantly come down with a fever and have his flesh slough off his skeleton. And she just failed to warn him about any of this when she was telling him to come with her. Also, I just realised that Grey Worm being gone means that Jon can just leave the Night's Watch again because it was literally only Grey Worm who took issue with Jon being free! I wish I and popular opinion were so kind. I watched it with a sour taste in my mouth, knowing that this was the culmination of Season 8's desperate attempt to butcher every character arc. I also hated, hated, the ballistae going from hitting Rhaegal three times in quick succession, to missing every single shot aimed at Drogon within an episode. And I cannot get that one Lannister soldier shouting "FIRE!" when he shot the ballista out of my head - Westeros doesn't have gunpowder or guns, so why is he shouting 'fire' as if it has a connotation with shooting projectiles? That was worse than when the writers decided to start writing a word we'd never heard before for male anatomy and realised "oh no they don't have that word in Westeros - QUICK SOMEONE MAKE IT A SOUTHERN THING THAT CONFUSES THE NORTHERNERS HA HA" - or when Bronn brought up 'fancy lad school'. There are no schools in Westeros. Daenerys going mad was dumb too. I'm sure that I know exactly why they did it, too. In the books, this battle will be between Daenerys and Aegon Targaryen (Blackfyre?). Jon Connington will be commanding Aegon's ground forces, and he has PTSD from the Battle of the Bells, and blames himself for Rhaegar Targaryen's death because he ran away from King Robert in that battle. The surrender bells will ring and he'll go into a frenzy. I suspect this is when he attacks a dragon - probably Rhaegal - and maybe kills it with a scorpion. Aegon's forces will start fighting Daenerys's in the panic, and Daenerys will go full-on 'burn them all'. I'm pretty sure that that's what was on GRRM's outline he gave to DnD, and they decided to work it in in the dumbest way possible. Yeah I don't know. Episode has a 40% Rotten Tomatoes rating and is the most critically panned episode in the history of the entire show (I'm pretty sure the final episode will dethrone it), so I'm not alone I'm glad you enjoyed it though. I wouldn't wish the amount of dissatisfaction I have on anyone and if you liked it, more power to you. I have no quarrel with the first two episodes honestly. Very character-driven and I really had no problems BESIDES THE DISTINCT LACK OF A JON-GHOST REUNION AND JON RANDOMLY RIDING A DRAGON AND NOBODY THINKING "HMM ISN'T IT ONLY VALYRIANS THAT CAN DO THAT?" GODS WHAT A STUPID NAME EPISODE SOMEONE GO BACK IN TIME AND FETCH ME THE SEASON STRETCHER WE NEED MORE WINE EPISODES (TO FIX THIS MESS) Things that I will praise Season 8 for AMAZING cinematography. This season has produced some of the prettiest shots I've ever seen on TV. AMAZING CGI. The dragons looked amazed the whole way throughout and I am honestly so impressed. AMAZING performances. The actors gave this season their all and despite writing that the cast is so openly critical of, they made it work. AMAZING music. Ramin Dijawadi has given this show an amazing soundtrack since the very beginning and Season 8 was no different. The Dothraki charge, Daenerys burning the Iron Fleet and that slow kind of churning as Drogon burnt King's Landing to ash and Jon goes into slow motion, and that amazing melancholic swelling of the instruments as Daenerys touched a sword hilt on the Iron Throne. God that bit was a great scene, sounded prideful but dark, I could feel the 'you got what you wanted, but at what cost?' thing in it. AMAZING sound design. Drogon's scream as he realised his mother was dead is a prime example of this. AMAZING expectation subversion. I expected this season to be good and it wasn't. DnD said their goal was to surprise people. I was surprised.
My apologies, my wording was poor. I understood why Brienne was on the small council -- my confusion as to why she (and Sam, etc.) was on the informal arena council to select the new king. Just seemed a silly tool to bring all the characters together. Considering Missandei and Grey Worm had planned to spend their days in Naath if they survived the war against the Night King, I'd say it's more than safe to assume this detail was redacted for the show, unless there was a most interesting subplot in which Missandei was trying to kill her love. Though I guess that would have a sense of morbid humor, it just wouldn't make sense. The Night Watch ending was emotionally nice but made no logical sense. Stupid. Drives me nuts. I won't comment on the dragon situation, but Dany's going mad always has made complete sense to me. I just don't see it as genuine "madness." She has always been violent--she looked on, pleased, at the death of her brother in season one, crucified the masters without hesitation, and burned the Tarlys rather than take them prisoner. This fit her pattern and came as no surprise and only made me love her more, frankly, for the reality of her character. I've always felt I understood Dany's drive and her failures to separate building greatness for her own legacy from her more noble goals. This was 100%, pure Dany, and I admired the honesty of character to no end. That's why I loved the episode so much (besides deeply appreciating how they finished the Cleganes and the end with Cersei and Jaime). God, I LOVED episode 2. Beautiful character-driven episode. But that first episode... every single dialogue bit was cheesy, and the only one who stayed true to his character were the Hound and Davos. Arya was not Arya, Dany and Jon were continually ridiculous, Sansa turned 2D, and on and on. No reunion struck me as genuine (with the exception of Arya and the Hound). I just ended the experience feeling like I watched a poorly made Disney movie. I wish I could like this more than once. The actors, cinematography, and the music were unbelieveable. Hats off to them, and I hope that the public in general gives them the credit they are due even as they criticize the several awful choices made by the script writers.
You do only complain but I am hopeful that you will be able to move on and enjoy life again. Here is a video that made me think of you.
King Bran is no longer a gripe of mine. I went back and looked at a few theories I've found in my time during my years as a Song of Ice and Fire fan, and the 'Fisher King Bran' theory has been attracting a lot of buzz as the ending that George RR Martin once said was so 'accurately predicted' it demotivated him to finish the books, or keep the ending. A theory that this theory is that theory is currently the most upvoted post on the ASOIAF subreddit, and the official Wikipedia page for the Fisher King now lists Bran Stark as a 'modern version' of the legend - there's thousands of us! The Fisher King is the English derivative of the Welsh 'Bendigeidfran' (in literal English: 'The Blessed Crow/Raven', English name: 'Brân the Blessed', Brân meaning 'Raven'). Bendigeidfran was a cewri/giant so tall that 'he never fit inside any building'. He ruled as a King of Britain and was the protector of the Holy Grail. During a battle with the King of Ireland, he is wounded in the leg. Later, his head is separated from his body but is still alive for many years. Bendigeidfran was probably real like King Arthur was, but obviously without all of the talking head stuff - likely just a regular old King for the Welsh tribes scattered across Wales and England to follow, who happened to be have a genetic defect making him super tall, that was crippled in battle. The Fisher King is slightly different to that. Brân is anglicised as 'Bron'. The Fisher King is spiritually tied to the realm that serves him, and when it suffers, as does he. The stories usually go that as Britain is suffering, he is wounded in the legs and is forced to live as a cripple, with no woman wanting to marry and have children with him, so he dies heirless (hint hint the wound is his homosexuality). Other names for him include things like the Wounded King. Bran Stark is a boy with crippled legs that shares the same name as Bendigeidfran, who rules over a broken kingdom: the North has been ravaged by the Iron Islands and the White Walkers; the Riverlands were the meeting point for the Stark + Lannister + King's armies coming from the north, the east and the west, and as a result are also burned to the ground; The Westerlands were a battle area for the War of the Five Kings and Daenerys's Conquest; The Reach has a random new House to unite behind after Cersei killed all of the Tyrells and was ravaged in Daenerys's Conquest; The Stormlands actually fractured into civil war between Renly and Stannis, and in the books are currently being invaded by Aegon Targaryen; and Dorne is... well, we don't bloody know what Dorne is doing because the show butchered it. Only The Eyrie remains okay, but they're sure as hell suffering from using their army to defend Winterfell and, being a mountainous area, are likely starving to death from the lack of food coming from The Reach. On top of that, the kid is the physical embodiment of the god who uses the Weirwood trees to communicate with its followers, making him the perfect king because he's... literally an omnipresent and omnipotent god. And that god's name is the 'Three Eyed Raven'. Raven = Brân. Brân = Bendigeidfran. Bendigeidfran = Blessed Raven. Makes sense. I'm sold on this being the theory that figured out the ending. Although saying that he did say he knew that they'd make him king and that's why he was at the Kingsmoot... which would mean that he knew Daenerys would burn down King's Landing and kill thousands... which would also mean that he knew Varys would plot against her once he recognised what she was... which would also mean that he knew Varys would use Jon as his replacement for Daenerys... and told everyone that Jon was a Targaryen to make all of this happen... which would mean that he's evil and a bit of an a-hole king. I'm just going to ignore that line exists though, because there's no weirwoods south of Blackwood Vale, so he can't 'see' anything beyond that tree and thus shouldn't be able to know they'd make him king.
True. Wait we didn't get any closure on Hot Pie, oh gods no, I'm boycotting the show. Also, had a moment of internal conflict over whether or not to get triggered over you calling it English history, Welsh + English works better for future reference (Welsh are the natives of Britain, the English are colonisers that conquered Wales, they stole the King Arthur legend from actual Welsh history and romanticised it, even until the 1970s England was trying to eradicate Welsh culture, the English-dominated British government tries its best to ignore the existence of Wales trying to federalise/maneuver for independence blahblahblah, I got triggered anyway didn't I smh)
Me and my gf were watching the episode together and gleefully hating on it. This scene happened and even we were like "OKAY THAT WAS SO COOL" and were in awe for several seconds... and then back to laughing at the episode.
