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[GoT/ASoIaF]: Our Watch has Ended (Open Spoilers)
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It's clear the best thing for the realm would have been for her to have accept the surrender of King's Landing, have Cersei killed, and allow the pieces to continue to fall into place as they were. Maybe that means she has a tenuous reign that's questioned by whispers, in which she attempts to endear herself to the people. Maybe she is put into a position where the people decide Jon should be king and she needs to kill him, then continue to crush rebellions, probably losing the north. Those are the two most likely options if she just called it there.
None of this is good enough for her. None of this is the unconditional birthright she has been telling herself she'd have for years. She needed a way to crush the people and inspire fear. Ruling through fear vs love has been something she has toyed with the entire series. Her greatest acts of kindness were self-serving, while she has been utterly merciless to any dissent or disloyalty (regardless of intention, even if it was in the interest of the people). If she's supposed to "break the wheel" she has given no indication whatsoever that she really would. How do you break the freaking wheel when you are utterly obsessed with being an unconditional monarch. It was obvious self-delusion.
I really think that we as viewers, and to some degree the show runners themselves, have been fooled into framing her as a fantastic hero. She's really, fundamentally flawed and always has been. She viewed all the free men of King's Landing as traitors, the same way she viewed the Tarlys. She burned them all to send the same message.
Had Jon been out of the picture it's possible things could have been a lot less bloody, since her power would have been significantly more secure. But that didn't happen.
To be clear I don't think this was handled NEARLY as well as it could have been, but that's largely the fault of seasons 7 and 8, and not the fault of seasons 1-6, nor the fault of any of the material in the novels. I think if there are any reshoots or recuts, THOSE are what you redo. Those connecting pieces are what I'm most excited to see in the books. I think the destination will be the same as what we got however.
Honestly in a way it was worse than Anakin’s heel turn. At least Anakin thought the Jedi were attempting a coup and made the wrong choice as to what side to support, even if he went to “lets kill kids” way too quickly from there.
Dany had basically won, the city was surrendering, the enemy was defeated, and then she all the sudden is like “oh, I won, wait there are some kids over there lets burn those fuckers.”
These are the people that chose to stay south and let the north & vale get butchered by the army of the dead.
These are the people that also promised to help but chose to sit out (like Glover).
Cersei then orders the hit on Dany's second remaining child, even though she and her fleet were not attacking king's landing at the time.
Cersei then has Messandei murdered, and yes let's call it that because she was never a soldier, only an advisor/interpreter.
The northmen and the men of the vale are standing down the lannister men, and all I could think of was the red wedding. The murder of Lord Aryn. The ravaging of the countryside and their allies (The Riverlands) for the past decade. Peace on those terms just wasn't possible. The irony being that if the Lannisters did march north, maybe the sack of King's Landing could have been avoided.
The moron gene in the Stark family is carried on the Y chromosome
It was harry Strickland’s
maybe i'm streaming terrible dj right now if i am its here
And Martin going, "If I knew that, the books would be out, good luck lol"
"I'll have to settle for fear."
They can't fear you if they're all dead.
King's Landing is a big city but it's not Westeros. Nor did she burn more than half of it. I was more concerned with her total destruction of the castle.
I hope they at least have to drag it out of the rubble so Dany can sit on it.
I wasn't sure if the little green explosions all over were that fuck you, just dwarfed by the destruction, or if she was just hitting supply caches.
They were the Mad king’s hidden caches that never detonated because of Jaime
maybe i'm streaming terrible dj right now if i am its here
Also had Dany done literally what she did last night in episode 4 Missandei would be alive.
Dany melting King's Landing is the snap. And Bran is gonna do an astral projection back in time with his Three Eyed Raven powers and influence the past so that people make better choices and Dany doesn't go all murdery.
I mean, really all Bran has to do is convince either his brother not to spill the beans, or his sister. Stop Jon from telling the girls, or stop Sansa from telling Tyrion, and thousands upon thousands of lives are spared.
If by best she could you mean fucked up at every turn and caused pretty much every bad thing that happened to her then sure.
That whole ending scene was ridiculous. Do they really expect us to feel bad for Cersei? What the fuck.
Death rides a pale horse, clearly.
Arya's definitely gonna try and kill Dany.
I think the thing I liked least about this episode was Jaime. That's his arc? Travel around, see the results of your actions, lose your hand, eventually realize your sister is toxic, leave to go help fight the undead, fall in love with someone else, decide "whoops who cares if she's toxic" and go back to hug her as you're both crushed by rubble? What was the point of that?! Prophecy, who needs 'em! I was at least sort of expecting rocks to fall and us to see Cersei still alive underneath but pinned down by a dead Jaime getting strangled by his metal hand or something.
Honestly I was impressed that they even remembered to have the green flares of wildfire at all. I overall liked Cleganebowl but found the rest really lacking. Arya deciding not to keep going seemed abrupt and I was very certain she had died at the end of the episode but doesn't seem like that's true. Oh, Qyburn's death was pretty good.
60+ minutes of digging.
They get it out but it's beyond repair.
Everyone sighs and wanders off to find something else to do.
Credits.
Fucking wrecked.
The music did get weirdly sentimental
maybe i'm streaming terrible dj right now if i am its here
Did you not hear the heartfelt string music that was playing??? How could you NOT be moved by it?!
PSN/Steam/NNID: SyphonBlue | BNet: SyphonBlue#1126
I dunno, I haven't seen Endgame but based on your post I assume
No, you don't
PSN/Steam/NNID: SyphonBlue | BNet: SyphonBlue#1126
Did it do that before Jamie arrived?
I mean either way, fucked up, but I thought it was mostly for him.
Endgame spoilers!
I didnt say it was perfect. I said she just did them for her family which is 100% true. She positioned herself to be be entrenched with what she thought would be a wall of death. But it turns out dragons are much more mobile than mounted ballistae and so having the element of surprise was paramount to the recent successes. After they were gone she was cornered.
you've also got to factor in the show runners deciding to just sprint towards the ending, turning down an offer of more time. Martin has said that while the plan is for two more books that could change if he feels that's what the story needs. whatever it takes to tell the story well vs fuck it, lets just get it over with.
doesn't really matter how detailed the notes you're working from are if you're solely focused on the endpoint.