I really liked this episode in isolation. Most of what was wrong with it was previously set up and it had a lot of positives like the acting, the score, the directing, etc. In the context of how...
Exemplary
I really liked this episode in isolation. Most of what was wrong with it was previously set up and it had a lot of positives like the acting, the score, the directing, etc. In the context of how this season has been it even had relatively good writing.
It's disappointing how they handled Dany's arc though. Making her the "mad queen" as triggered by a few character deaths ignores the tragic flaws and contradictions in her character as well as the moral questions that could have been asked about her this whole series. She had the possibility to be as deep and interesting an anti-hero as Walter White. There were a lot of similarities between them: both were easy to love and sympathize with; both committed outrageous acts there were easy to justify because of who the victims were, the cool-factor, and genre expectations; and both had a large fan following that didn't want to see any fault in their actions.
Where Game of Thrones dropped the ball compared to Breaking Bad is that the latter addressed the anti-hero's flaw (Walter White's pride) and showed that this overrode the altruistic intention (helping his family) that he had once believed motivated him. Game of Thrones was a bit different: Dany really did care about helping people and 'breaking chains', but there was a looming conflict between this and her desire to subjugate Westeros no matter the cost and no matter if they wanted her to rule them. That could have been a great story line—when it came down to it was it more important for Dany to support freedom or for her to embrace conquest and pride?
Instead Dany never had to face any internal conflict and the viewer was never forced to confront the morality of the 'hero' they had been cheering for this whole time. The writers had the idea of the ending (Dany being a tyrannical villain when she got to Westeros and wasn't embraced by the people) but the way they got there was just to say, "well, she went crazy—those Targs, right?" It's fine for other characters to see her as the "mad queen" but as viewers who have been with her this whole time we should know that's a simplistic explanation that doesn't get at the deeper logic of her character.
I'm also disappointed in a meta sort of way. It's common in fantasy stories (or really any kind of story with violence) to cheer on the heroes and not think about what they're doing. Good guys are good, bad guys are bad, and good guys hurting the bad guys is a Good Thing. We even have borderline hilarious tricks to tell us when we should care about someone who's being killed. (e.g. The Lannister soldiers having helmets that hide or show their faces depending on whether or not we're supposed to care about them being killed in any particular scene.) At its heart though this story is still A Song of Ice and Fire and GRRM set out to bury the trope of truly good or evil characters. Many have interpreted this in a "shades of grey everyone sucks no one is good" kind of way but I think GRRM's intention is more humanist. He doesn't want us to root for slaughter and atrocities just because the people committing them are on Team Good.
This is why Dany's story line could have been brilliant: GRRM was getting us to cheer unconditionally for someone who would eventually commit monstrous acts against other characters and places we cared about and we would realize she was this person all along. And that's where the show failed: as far as their narrative told us Dany never was a monster. She was a strong and kind liberator who went crazy in the last two episodes because personal loss triggered her Targ crazy-genes.
The ending to Dany's arc, instead of being a brilliant cultural moment that made us all step back a bit and reconsider how we interact with our fictional heroes, will instead be remembered as that time that good show went off the rails like Dexter or Lost or BSG. It's a real shame. Hopefully we'll get a better ending to Dany's story in the books but by then the moment will have passed.
I wouln't be too sure of that yet. According to Ian McElhinney (aka Ser Barristan Selmy) GRRM has already completed the next two books and will be publishing them shortly to mop up D&D's mess. If...
by then the moment will have passed.
I wouln't be too sure of that yet. According to Ian McElhinney (aka Ser Barristan Selmy) GRRM has already completed the next two books and will be publishing them shortly to mop up D&D's mess. If this turns out to be true, I will have to tip my hat to GRRM for an epic bit of trolling.
Mentally I've been giving GRRM the finger for dragging his feet on this and missing the publishing opportunity to drive his sales into the stratosphere. Seemed badly mismanaged. If GRRM was just...
Mentally I've been giving GRRM the finger for dragging his feet on this and missing the publishing opportunity to drive his sales into the stratosphere. Seemed badly mismanaged. If GRRM was just giving D&D enough rope to hang themselves, waiting on publishing the finished box set of Thrones until after the fanbase turns and eats HBO alive (as it has begun to do), I'll have to take that all back. That's a backstabbing Machiavellian move worthy of some of George's most ruthless characters. HBO will become the King's Blood sacrifice that brings the lord of light to the top of the bestseller lists.
It seems too good to be true. Still, that statement from Ian...
I haven't seen much criticism directed at HBO - it's mainly about D&D. HBO wanted two full seasons of 10 episodes each to finish the story out, but D&D said they "grew out of Game of Thrones"....
I haven't seen much criticism directed at HBO - it's mainly about D&D. HBO wanted two full seasons of 10 episodes each to finish the story out, but D&D said they "grew out of Game of Thrones". Refused to do more than what we got and wouldn't let other writers take over instead.
Word. When the writers aren't feeling it, that's fine. There are plenty out there to replace them, and it needn't be a hard breakup either. If HBO wanted ten seasons, they should have gotten their...
Word. When the writers aren't feeling it, that's fine. There are plenty out there to replace them, and it needn't be a hard breakup either. If HBO wanted ten seasons, they should have gotten their ten seasons. Contracts with actors and other boring business-related factors tend to complicate that sort of thing.
I do think this sort of thing would be easier if there was more long-term planning present in television. Don't just buy shows season to season if you're a network - have the guts to buy two or five seasons at a time. That gives the people involved more room to plan and less limits on how far down the road they can plan for. Only take those risks on shows that perform really well, or on writers and producers that have a proven track record - but be a little brave once in a while. The happy medium here seems to be right around five seasons. Breaking Bad, Babylon 5, The Wire - all of them were five seasons long and are among the best in their genres, if not all genres.
Take a lesson from Breaking Bad, too - try spinoffs instead of cramming more into the main series. Better Call Saul is damn good television, and can afford to be different from its predecessor. Remember Cheers morphing into Frasier? That needn't be a rare thing. Take a lesson from Babylon 5 and have the courage to write the ending first so you know where you are going, and don't get lost along the way. Take a lesson from The Wire and don't be afraid to change up the rules in between seasons telling a deeper story.
HBO should know all of this by now. Wasn't there some massive round of business consolidation going on during all of this, something to do with parent networks buying and merging? Perhaps the business side had them distracted. It happens.
Me too. I have no idea what their contracts actually say and am only repeating what I've gleaned from articles and interviews. See this article:
Me too. I have no idea what their contracts actually say and am only repeating what I've gleaned from articles and interviews. See this article:
In an interview published before the final premiere, D&D made it clear that they were the ones insisting on stopping at eight seasons and limiting the last two to a total of 13 episodes. “[HBO] said, ‘We’ll give you the resources to make this what it needs to be,’” Weiss said. Benioff added, “HBO would have been happy for the show to keep going, to have more episodes in the final season.” But the showrunners refused. “We always believed it was about 73 hours, and it will be roughly that,” Benioff continued. “As much as they wanted more, they understood that this is where the story ends.
Seems like the way to make the best of a bad situation for himself. "And now here's the real ending to A Song of Ice and Fire. One that isn't screwed up!"
Seems like the way to make the best of a bad situation for himself. "And now here's the real ending to A Song of Ice and Fire. One that isn't screwed up!"
I very much doubt an announcement like this was going to be made to a guy who was off the show 3 or 4 years ago. I'm guessing he misheard or misinterpreted something GRRM said. He hasn't divulged...
I very much doubt an announcement like this was going to be made to a guy who was off the show 3 or 4 years ago. I'm guessing he misheard or misinterpreted something GRRM said. He hasn't divulged anything like this to people he's closer to unless they're ALL really good at keeping secrets.
We know GRRM has the whole series plotted out at this point. His challenge has always been coming up with a plausible way for the characters to get from where they were at the end of Storm of Swords to where they need to be at the beginning of Winds of Winter to start unfolding the endgame.
His original plan was to just do a time-skip, but he decided that was unworkable since it would elide some really important character development so he tried to write his way through it and we got the meandering tangle of the last two books.
He knows what needs to happen in the next (last?) two books, but he doesn't know how to set the story up to get it started. I'm sure he's even got most of the manuscript tentatively done, but there are some specific holes in it that he can't figure out how to make them fit together properly.
I'm not sure you're entirely correct though. I know people who were still rooting for Danny until this episode, but I've been saying since series 5 or 6 that Danny isn't the good guy anymore. It...
I'm not sure you're entirely correct though. I know people who were still rooting for Danny until this episode, but I've been saying since series 5 or 6 that Danny isn't the good guy anymore. It was subtle things at the beginning (and tbh it's been so long since I've watched it that I can't actually remember them). We as the audience chose to ignore them though because we liked her. Earlier in this season she's been acting selfishly and power hungry, but it didn't start then. She's so bent on becoming the queen that she ignores the fact that she's not the best person for the job. She declares herself the true heir when she knows she's not. The fact that this happened doesn't surprise me at all, and I certainly don't think it's a failure of the writing that it did, I feel like if a lot of people who are surprised by this went back and re-watched the series they'd find that Danny wasn't the perfect Queen like they always thought she was. The burning of Varys was a perfect example of how far she'd gone so I'm not sure why people were shocked when she burnt the city as well. Danny never had to do any moral introspection because this was the person she'd spent the last few series becoming, and by this point she genuinely believes that was she did was right.
Danny stopped being a good candidate for the throne a long time ago, and her insane and unstoppable desire to take it showed this. After all, any man who must say I am king is no true king. Given that quote, wasn't Jon the most likely person since the first time that he said he didn't want the throne?
Eh, I feel like this is making excuses for kindergarten-level writing mistakes. I respect your opinion, however for myself, I want more than this out of anything I spend this many hours watching....
Eh, I feel like this is making excuses for kindergarten-level writing mistakes. I respect your opinion, however for myself, I want more than this out of anything I spend this many hours watching. We've gone from excellence like the Red Wedding to last night's bad video game ripoff. I think this detailed explanation illustrates just how ham-fisted the character development has become.
There's a rumor going around that D&D wrote this crap while coked out of their minds on some yacht for a couple of weeks. I thought that was just shitposting until this episode, and if you haven't seen the leaks that laid out all of this months ago (and were blasted for being fake), let me just say this: fans haven't begun to be disappointed yet.
I think there's two ways to look at these episodes. You can compare them to what they were, which is a perfectly reasonable approach, and if you do you'll find they get progressly less satisfying...
I think there's two ways to look at these episodes. You can compare them to what they were, which is a perfectly reasonable approach, and if you do you'll find they get progressly less satisfying and worse since about series 5 or 6, and 8 is kind of horrific. There's nothing wrong with that approach because a show needs to be held up to scrutiny.
Or you can take the other approach, which is to just accept that the plot has gone to shit and appreciate the massive spending budget, the editing, the first fantasy show that's ever been any good, and the show itself as a cultural movement. And when you watch it like that series 8 becomes one of the best series in the show (I know, its blasphemy). I get that it can't be that way for every peice of media we consume, but the sheer epic-ness of this last series blew my mind a little. In my heart I want to hate it but I just can't, although I guess that's because I'm not a die hard fan who's read all the books and stuff. I get your point, and you're probably right but I just can't not enjoy these final episodes.
The dismally poor ending, I'm afraid, might actually stick a fork in the potential of having future fantasy shows. Supposedly there is a Wheel of Time series in the works, how much rope are they...
the first fantasy show that's ever been any good, and the show itself as a cultural movement.
The dismally poor ending, I'm afraid, might actually stick a fork in the potential of having future fantasy shows. Supposedly there is a Wheel of Time series in the works, how much rope are they going to allow it if GoT loses all cultural cachet?
Oh, I'm enjoying them immensely. I can watch them both ways, but when it's time to talk about the show, exploring the flaws is all part of the fun. We're going to have memes for years on this one.
Oh, I'm enjoying them immensely. I can watch them both ways, but when it's time to talk about the show, exploring the flaws is all part of the fun. We're going to have memes for years on this one.
I didn't mean to say that Dany actually was the hero people saw her as. Ever since she was disturbingly accepting of Khal Drogo's atrocities in season/book 1 I've been expecting something like...
I didn't mean to say that Dany actually was the hero people saw her as. Ever since she was disturbingly accepting of Khal Drogo's atrocities in season/book 1 I've been expecting something like this once she got to Westeros. I was more making the point that most of the fandom saw her that way (especially the more casual side) and the show itself was happy to lean into that to the point where a lot of people thought her sudden "turn" felt out of character. (That's not entirely without merit though; this season was pretty rushed.) If you're interested in more of my thoughts on this I made a post a few days ago on the /r/asoiaf subreddit where I tried to push back against the idea that Dany was a virtuous hero who had a sudden out-of-character change: https://redd.it/blvqvm
Book Dany has never been as stable/sane as show Dany, so this does feel like it tracks with GRRM's ending to me (combined with all of the plots going on the show left out). He'd never handle it so...
Book Dany has never been as stable/sane as show Dany, so this does feel like it tracks with GRRM's ending to me (combined with all of the plots going on the show left out). He'd never handle it so artlessly, though. The show failed to set this stuff up properly, so now it feels like a pointless shock choice rather than a logical conclusion. Also, the leaks from months ago have been so, so right - if they are right about who is on the Throne next week, that episode is going to top this one in spades for fan outrage and it'll be nothing at all like the books.
How many parents are out there now regretting naming their children Dany/Khaleesi because she was a 'feminist icon', I wonder?
The problem is that killing Varys is a noble thing to do according to the show own standards. The very first episode shows Ned Stark beheading someone for desertion and that's all good. But...
The burning of Varys was a perfect example of how far she'd gone so I'm not sure why people were shocked when she burnt the city as well.
The problem is that killing Varys is a noble thing to do according to the show own standards. The very first episode shows Ned Stark beheading someone for desertion and that's all good. But killing someone for treason suddenly is horrible because... reasons ?
I think the problem is that its not treason and she knows it. I'm not sure what the actual definition of treason is, but she isn't the true heir and she's doing everything she can to cover that...
I think the problem is that its not treason and she knows it. I'm not sure what the actual definition of treason is, but she isn't the true heir and she's doing everything she can to cover that up. Ned killed the man for abandoning his post, something his job requires him to do. Danny killing Varys is covering up a mistake. The noble thing to do, which is what Ned would have done, would be to step down and accept that Jon is the rightful heir.
The true queen is whoever got coronated. If someone has a better claim they would need to press that claim and formally take the title. If the title isn't pressed then it isn't a problem. What...
she isn't the true heir and she's doing everything she can to cover that up
The true queen is whoever got coronated. If someone has a better claim they would need to press that claim and formally take the title. If the title isn't pressed then it isn't a problem.
What Varys does is actively tries to foment factionalism by pressing Jon's claim on his behalf, contrary to Jon's own wishes. That's totally treasonous. Our modern, republican sensibilities give us pretty restrictive ideas about what counts as "treason." But from the perspective of a feudal system of governance Varys actions were unambiguously, textbook treasonous.
Ned Stark was also arrested and murdered for treason though. He was doing a very similar thing to Varys, uncovering the truth about a government that shouldn't be in power. Yet most people regard...
Ned Stark was also arrested and murdered for treason though. He was doing a very similar thing to Varys, uncovering the truth about a government that shouldn't be in power. Yet most people regard the execution of Ned to be unjust. In my eyes both are instances of people trying to do the right thing, but being murdered for it by a tyrannical government which must lie to their subjects about their most basic claim to kingship. From a modern perspective that's not okay, but even in Westeros Ned wasn't okay with it.
Two things. One is that he was literally trying to save the Lannister incest babies from being killed while also trying to ensure a legitimate succession. There’s a lot more to Ned’s actions than...
He was doing a very similar thing to Varys, uncovering the truth about a government that shouldn't be in power.
Two things. One is that he was literally trying to save the Lannister incest babies from being killed while also trying to ensure a legitimate succession. There’s a lot more to Ned’s actions than Varys’ but part of that is probably because Ned got an entire season for his story to unfold while Varys got about 8 minutes.
Secondly, there is a difference between law and justice. You can violate the law in the name of justice, but the law is still the law.
Yeah that's fair enough. I guess my point isn't so much that Varys didn't break the law but more that Danny acting the way she did was symptomatic of her power complex. She wouldn't be in that...
Yeah that's fair enough. I guess my point isn't so much that Varys didn't break the law but more that Danny acting the way she did was symptomatic of her power complex. She wouldn't be in that situation if she was doing the moral thing imo.
And I mean you're right, if Varys was trying to poison her then she should take immediate action in self defense, but there's no way she would know that he was. All she knew was that he was plotting against her and planning to use Jon's secret against her.
This episode had such a powerful story line, I really liked it. I agree they could have set up the story with a little more character development prior to this episode. How did Dany figure out how...
This episode had such a powerful story line, I really liked it.
I agree they could have set up the story with a little more character development prior to this episode.
How did Dany figure out how to fly Dragons effectively against those giant arrows?
Exactly. An evolution that took two episodes should have developed over two seasons. I'm trying to think back - maybe the initial loss of Viserion to the Army of the Dead could be interpreted as...
And that's where the show failed: as far as their narrative told us Dany never was a monster. She was a strong and kind liberator who went crazy in the last two episodes because personal loss triggered her Targ crazy-genes.
Exactly. An evolution that took two episodes should have developed over two seasons. I'm trying to think back - maybe the initial loss of Viserion to the Army of the Dead could be interpreted as an early sign? Things seemed pretty peachy until the news of Jon's parents though. I certainly didn't think she was at the murder-thousands-of-innocents stage yet.
She'll probably kill Jon and steal his face so she can get close enough to Dany to shank her. At this point I wouldn't put anything past these idiot writers.
She'll probably kill Jon and steal his face so she can get close enough to Dany to shank her. At this point I wouldn't put anything past these idiot writers.
The Arya scenes got old real fast. I wonder if the writers know that if you continually do that sort of thing with a character the viewers eventually become desensitized to it?
The Arya scenes got old real fast. I wonder if the writers know that if you continually do that sort of thing with a character the viewers eventually become desensitized to it?
No, I think you're into something. https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/569707385560498234/577572282759643146/IMG-20190513-WA0032.jpg He clearly has his hand.
Am I the only one who didn't enjoy Cleganebowl? Sure, Qyburn did some weird alchemist type shit with the Mountain, but does that mean he is now invincible? Knife through the brain and still...
Am I the only one who didn't enjoy Cleganebowl? Sure, Qyburn did some weird alchemist type shit with the Mountain, but does that mean he is now invincible? Knife through the brain and still unphased? Heck at this rate, I guess he should still be alive at the bottom of the red keep under some rubble.
The idea is that Qyburn turned him into a kind of wight. That Oberyn's poisoned spear killed him for real, and he was reanimated through the horrible magic Qyburn was expelled from the Citadel for...
The idea is that Qyburn turned him into a kind of wight. That Oberyn's poisoned spear killed him for real, and he was reanimated through the horrible magic Qyburn was expelled from the Citadel for practicing.
Wood is flammable, but you don't just throw a ton of logs on a firepit to get a huge fire. That's how you smother a fire. As Gilly said, you have to let it breathe.
Wood is flammable, but you don't just throw a ton of logs on a firepit to get a huge fire. That's how you smother a fire. As Gilly said, you have to let it breathe.
The lamp likely soaked the weight in flammable oil. The trench likely had little to no oil, and only to guarantee that the fire would propagate to all of the wood.
The lamp likely soaked the weight in flammable oil. The trench likely had little to no oil, and only to guarantee that the fire would propagate to all of the wood.
I don't think so. It's been like, 8 or 9 years since I've read them, but if I remember right then in the books it's not confirmed that Ser Robert Strong is the Mountain at all. Qyburn wants the...
I don't think so.
It's been like, 8 or 9 years since I've read them, but if I remember right then in the books it's not confirmed that Ser Robert Strong is the Mountain at all. Qyburn wants the Mountains body for experiments, and not long after this hulking, silent figure who doesn't seem to ever eat shows up in the Kingsguard.
You arent the only one. I rode the Hype train from the start and was sorely disappointed. Did I expect Sandor to wash his brother? No. Did I expect it to be better than watching an old invincible...
You arent the only one. I rode the Hype train from the start and was sorely disappointed.
Did I expect Sandor to wash his brother? No.
Did I expect it to be better than watching an old invincible Goldberg wrestling match? Yes.
But thats what weve gotten this season. Disappointment.
When it comes to sword fight, it was a pretty poor one. But to be honest Hollywood rarely do fighting scenes very well (compared to e.g. Japan or China).
When it comes to sword fight, it was a pretty poor one. But to be honest Hollywood rarely do fighting scenes very well (compared to e.g. Japan or China).
The only good thing to come out of this season of GoT was my discovery of nerdrotic's channel. Well, that and the glorious memetic shitstorm that /r/freefolk has become. I'd say this video sums it...
The only good thing to come out of this season of GoT was my discovery of nerdrotic's channel. Well, that and the glorious memetic shitstorm that /r/freefolk has become.
I'd say this video sums it all up. Just add thrones to that pile. I'd also like to nominate the phrase 'jump the shark' for revision - thrones has faceplanted so hard this season that I think it's officially topped happy days and any other contenders.
I did enjoy the barbecue, and cleganebowl was fun. All of the characters have become parodies of themselves, but at least this time I could see what the hell was happening. I was expecting more wildfire, though. I can't wait for the pile of excuses people trot out to defend this episode's shitty storytelling.
I liked several parts of this episode. The score was awesome, as always, and the cinematography was top notch. Seeing how destructive dragons are against cities was truly awesome, though a bit at...
I liked several parts of this episode. The score was awesome, as always, and the cinematography was top notch. Seeing how destructive dragons are against cities was truly awesome, though a bit at odds with how much power they given to scorpions. But I really disliked the way they portrayed Dany's slide into "madness." They did a poor job showing this to the viewer, especially after years of buildup of a just ruler who cares about innocents. I was annoyed at Arya's constant death defying as she ran through the streets, though I appreciated the attention and the point-of-view of a character on the ground, in the city, being attacked by a dragon.
Jaime's arc was really unfulfilling, as was Cersei's IMO. I guess the valonqar prophecy meant nothing, and Jaime's tussle with Euron and then somehow making it up all those stairs with gaping wounds were bad storytelling, but I guess that's par for the course with the ridiculous survival of characters in deadly situations from the rest of the season.
One of the people I was watching it with described it as "big budget fan-fiction" which seems exactly right. All the technical production stuff is still top notch, but the writing is just lazy and...
I liked several parts of this episode. The score was awesome, as always, and the cinematography was top notch. Seeing how destructive dragons are against cities was truly awesome, though a bit at odds with how much power they given to scorpions. But I really disliked the way they portrayed Dany's slide into "madness."
One of the people I was watching it with described it as "big budget fan-fiction" which seems exactly right. All the technical production stuff is still top notch, but the writing is just lazy and slipshod.
I think they tried to convey that by coming in at odd angles you could effectively neutralize the scorpions. That's why she came down straight out of the sky and then stayed lower than they could...
I think they tried to convey that by coming in at odd angles you could effectively neutralize the scorpions. That's why she came down straight out of the sky and then stayed lower than they could effectively fire.
This is a step up from the previous episode. And it definitely fits with the "bittersweet" ending ASOIAF is supposed to have in the books. Most importantly, Cleganebowl happened and it was...
This is a step up from the previous episode. And it definitely fits with the "bittersweet" ending ASOIAF is supposed to have in the books.
Most importantly, Cleganebowl happened and it was glorious. I do wish they'd shown us the full fight uninterrupted, though.
I wish them both being killed by fire involved actually being killed by fire instead of being thrown out of a tower into a fire. Honestly it would have been best for them to both be so intent on...
I wish them both being killed by fire involved actually being killed by fire instead of being thrown out of a tower into a fire.
Honestly it would have been best for them to both be so intent on killing each other that they don't notice the whole room in blazes around them until it burns them both dead, rendering their whole fight moot. But conveying themes or actual symbolism doesn't seem to be what the show writers are into.
The universe is amazing, and for most of the first seasons I could understand why a character took an action. I may have disagreed with it, I may have hated the character for it, but most...
The universe is amazing, and for most of the first seasons I could understand why a character took an action. I may have disagreed with it, I may have hated the character for it, but most decisions made some kind of sense.
Not so much in S08 or S07.
I like that "the good guys" do bad things and that the bad guys aren't just token bad guys, but the writers haven't done enough to show a character development for Danearys. She's always been ok with grizzly deaths for her enemies but not for innocents.
I'd be interested to hear what people are predicting for next episode. Or what things must the writers avoid - what dumb thing are they going to try that you think they need to avoid?
I think a big part of that feeling is the lack of episodes. I'm sure they have good storylines planned out but they cut a ton of it for the six episode format and end up with viewers confused at...
I think a big part of that feeling is the lack of episodes. I'm sure they have good storylines planned out but they cut a ton of it for the six episode format and end up with viewers confused at the missing pieces.
Dany's breakdown came out of nowhere, but given several more episodes we could have seen it coming. Just.. we didn't, because they tried to rush it into two episodes.
So after 5 episodes....this season has largely been disappointing. I'm not as "Death to DnD" as a lot social media is but this season is clearly hampered by the number of episodes. 6 was just too...
So after 5 episodes....this season has largely been disappointing. I'm not as "Death to DnD" as a lot social media is but this season is clearly hampered by the number of episodes. 6 was just too few. They needed at least 8, if not 10, to really flesh everything out. Hell, a ninth season would've been ideal. Season 8 deals with the Night King, Season 9 deals with who rules Westeros.
Daenerys going full Mad Queen isn't completely out of left field. There's been enough bread crumbs and hints at the possibilty over the 8 seasons but her descent in Mad Queen-dom was so rapid. Dany never shied away from dealing with her enemies harshly but turning Drogon against King's Landing....something she was adamant she wouldn't do in S7.....That's why Jon even took the chance with her in the first place. Because she had the ability to burn King's Landing to the ground but she wasn't. She wanted the people to love her, not fear her. But she's abandoned that and turned her anger against people who had zero to do with her loss. Cersei executed Missandei. Euron killed Rhaegal. The people of King's Landing didn't do that.
If they wanted to really sell Daenerys, the Mad Queen, they needed a few more episodes to really make it believable.
Jaime........him I'm not so irritated with. A lot of people point to 8 seasons of character development being thrown out the window but there's nothing surprising about it. How many people do we know personally that just can't quit someone toxic? Every time they leave, they end up going back. Even when we think they've turned the corner, somehow they still fall back into it. I see Jaime as basically doing the same thing. He simply can't let her go. They came into Westeros together, they're going out together(presumably). We don't see bodies so I could see it possible, however unlikely, that Jaime dies in the cave and Cersei escapes somehow, to visit vengeance on Daenerys for Jaimes death. That could set up Arya crossing Cersei off her list.
Didn't care as much for the Cleganebowl as much as I thought I would. I think it's because they kept cutting away from it so it was impossible to get really sucked in. Thought the ending worked though. Sad to see Sandor die but he went out pretty much the way he wanted. Killing his brother. He was character development done right on this show. Same with Theon.
I didn't care for how the Northmen turned barbaric there, at the end but it's not really surprising either. We except all the Northerners to be honorable like Jon and Ned and even Robb were. But they were the exception, not the rule. War has a talent for turning even the best men into monsters.
All in all, I think DnD are making the best of a bad situation. I think, everything that's happened so far, are things that were logical conclusions for each character but for whatever reason, 6 episodes is what they had to work with and it just wasn't enough to make things believable. Just wasn't enough to really develop the ideas and make them work.
Yes, but usually it's the other way around (creator wants to keep the show running long past its prime). Usually it leads to the show feeling repetitive. The Simpsons comes to mind as the most...
Yes, but usually it's the other way around (creator wants to keep the show running long past its prime). Usually it leads to the show feeling repetitive. The Simpsons comes to mind as the most classic example, but for me the worst offenders is Stargate SG-1. Burn Notice and Orange is the New Black also come to mind and I'd even mention Seinfeld.
I'm having a hard time thinking about "high quality shows that were cut short by the showrunners getting bored, despite the network giving infinite budget".
All that sweet sweet hollywood money is calling. The actors want to move on in their careers, D&D want to start writing star wars movies (check their IMDB). They were mentally checked out on...
All that sweet sweet hollywood money is calling. The actors want to move on in their careers, D&D want to start writing star wars movies (check their IMDB). They were mentally checked out on thrones years ago, I'll bet.
I really liked this episode in isolation. Most of what was wrong with it was previously set up and it had a lot of positives like the acting, the score, the directing, etc. In the context of how this season has been it even had relatively good writing.
It's disappointing how they handled Dany's arc though. Making her the "mad queen" as triggered by a few character deaths ignores the tragic flaws and contradictions in her character as well as the moral questions that could have been asked about her this whole series. She had the possibility to be as deep and interesting an anti-hero as Walter White. There were a lot of similarities between them: both were easy to love and sympathize with; both committed outrageous acts there were easy to justify because of who the victims were, the cool-factor, and genre expectations; and both had a large fan following that didn't want to see any fault in their actions.
Where Game of Thrones dropped the ball compared to Breaking Bad is that the latter addressed the anti-hero's flaw (Walter White's pride) and showed that this overrode the altruistic intention (helping his family) that he had once believed motivated him. Game of Thrones was a bit different: Dany really did care about helping people and 'breaking chains', but there was a looming conflict between this and her desire to subjugate Westeros no matter the cost and no matter if they wanted her to rule them. That could have been a great story line—when it came down to it was it more important for Dany to support freedom or for her to embrace conquest and pride?
Instead Dany never had to face any internal conflict and the viewer was never forced to confront the morality of the 'hero' they had been cheering for this whole time. The writers had the idea of the ending (Dany being a tyrannical villain when she got to Westeros and wasn't embraced by the people) but the way they got there was just to say, "well, she went crazy—those Targs, right?" It's fine for other characters to see her as the "mad queen" but as viewers who have been with her this whole time we should know that's a simplistic explanation that doesn't get at the deeper logic of her character.
I'm also disappointed in a meta sort of way. It's common in fantasy stories (or really any kind of story with violence) to cheer on the heroes and not think about what they're doing. Good guys are good, bad guys are bad, and good guys hurting the bad guys is a Good Thing. We even have borderline hilarious tricks to tell us when we should care about someone who's being killed. (e.g. The Lannister soldiers having helmets that hide or show their faces depending on whether or not we're supposed to care about them being killed in any particular scene.) At its heart though this story is still A Song of Ice and Fire and GRRM set out to bury the trope of truly good or evil characters. Many have interpreted this in a "shades of grey everyone sucks no one is good" kind of way but I think GRRM's intention is more humanist. He doesn't want us to root for slaughter and atrocities just because the people committing them are on Team Good.
This is why Dany's story line could have been brilliant: GRRM was getting us to cheer unconditionally for someone who would eventually commit monstrous acts against other characters and places we cared about and we would realize she was this person all along. And that's where the show failed: as far as their narrative told us Dany never was a monster. She was a strong and kind liberator who went crazy in the last two episodes because personal loss triggered her Targ crazy-genes.
The ending to Dany's arc, instead of being a brilliant cultural moment that made us all step back a bit and reconsider how we interact with our fictional heroes, will instead be remembered as that time that good show went off the rails like Dexter or Lost or BSG. It's a real shame. Hopefully we'll get a better ending to Dany's story in the books but by then the moment will have passed.
I wouln't be too sure of that yet. According to Ian McElhinney (aka Ser Barristan Selmy) GRRM has already completed the next two books and will be publishing them shortly to mop up D&D's mess. If this turns out to be true, I will have to tip my hat to GRRM for an epic bit of trolling.
That would be the most ridiculous thing ever but I want to believe.
Mentally I've been giving GRRM the finger for dragging his feet on this and missing the publishing opportunity to drive his sales into the stratosphere. Seemed badly mismanaged. If GRRM was just giving D&D enough rope to hang themselves, waiting on publishing the finished box set of Thrones until after the fanbase turns and eats HBO alive (as it has begun to do), I'll have to take that all back. That's a backstabbing Machiavellian move worthy of some of George's most ruthless characters. HBO will become the King's Blood sacrifice that brings the lord of light to the top of the bestseller lists.
It seems too good to be true. Still, that statement from Ian...
I haven't seen much criticism directed at HBO - it's mainly about D&D. HBO wanted two full seasons of 10 episodes each to finish the story out, but D&D said they "grew out of Game of Thrones". Refused to do more than what we got and wouldn't let other writers take over instead.
I'm surprised they have so much control.
Word. When the writers aren't feeling it, that's fine. There are plenty out there to replace them, and it needn't be a hard breakup either. If HBO wanted ten seasons, they should have gotten their ten seasons. Contracts with actors and other boring business-related factors tend to complicate that sort of thing.
I do think this sort of thing would be easier if there was more long-term planning present in television. Don't just buy shows season to season if you're a network - have the guts to buy two or five seasons at a time. That gives the people involved more room to plan and less limits on how far down the road they can plan for. Only take those risks on shows that perform really well, or on writers and producers that have a proven track record - but be a little brave once in a while. The happy medium here seems to be right around five seasons. Breaking Bad, Babylon 5, The Wire - all of them were five seasons long and are among the best in their genres, if not all genres.
Take a lesson from Breaking Bad, too - try spinoffs instead of cramming more into the main series. Better Call Saul is damn good television, and can afford to be different from its predecessor. Remember Cheers morphing into Frasier? That needn't be a rare thing. Take a lesson from Babylon 5 and have the courage to write the ending first so you know where you are going, and don't get lost along the way. Take a lesson from The Wire and don't be afraid to change up the rules in between seasons telling a deeper story.
HBO should know all of this by now. Wasn't there some massive round of business consolidation going on during all of this, something to do with parent networks buying and merging? Perhaps the business side had them distracted. It happens.
Me too. I have no idea what their contracts actually say and am only repeating what I've gleaned from articles and interviews. See this article:
Translation: We're sick of doing this show, and we can make a lot more money writing for Disney now that GRRM has made us look like competent writers.
Seems like the way to make the best of a bad situation for himself. "And now here's the real ending to A Song of Ice and Fire. One that isn't screwed up!"
I very much doubt an announcement like this was going to be made to a guy who was off the show 3 or 4 years ago. I'm guessing he misheard or misinterpreted something GRRM said. He hasn't divulged anything like this to people he's closer to unless they're ALL really good at keeping secrets.
We know GRRM has the whole series plotted out at this point. His challenge has always been coming up with a plausible way for the characters to get from where they were at the end of Storm of Swords to where they need to be at the beginning of Winds of Winter to start unfolding the endgame.
His original plan was to just do a time-skip, but he decided that was unworkable since it would elide some really important character development so he tried to write his way through it and we got the meandering tangle of the last two books.
He knows what needs to happen in the next (last?) two books, but he doesn't know how to set the story up to get it started. I'm sure he's even got most of the manuscript tentatively done, but there are some specific holes in it that he can't figure out how to make them fit together properly.
I'm not sure you're entirely correct though. I know people who were still rooting for Danny until this episode, but I've been saying since series 5 or 6 that Danny isn't the good guy anymore. It was subtle things at the beginning (and tbh it's been so long since I've watched it that I can't actually remember them). We as the audience chose to ignore them though because we liked her. Earlier in this season she's been acting selfishly and power hungry, but it didn't start then. She's so bent on becoming the queen that she ignores the fact that she's not the best person for the job. She declares herself the true heir when she knows she's not. The fact that this happened doesn't surprise me at all, and I certainly don't think it's a failure of the writing that it did, I feel like if a lot of people who are surprised by this went back and re-watched the series they'd find that Danny wasn't the perfect Queen like they always thought she was. The burning of Varys was a perfect example of how far she'd gone so I'm not sure why people were shocked when she burnt the city as well. Danny never had to do any moral introspection because this was the person she'd spent the last few series becoming, and by this point she genuinely believes that was she did was right.
Danny stopped being a good candidate for the throne a long time ago, and her insane and unstoppable desire to take it showed this. After all, any man who must say I am king is no true king. Given that quote, wasn't Jon the most likely person since the first time that he said he didn't want the throne?
Eh, I feel like this is making excuses for kindergarten-level writing mistakes. I respect your opinion, however for myself, I want more than this out of anything I spend this many hours watching. We've gone from excellence like the Red Wedding to last night's bad video game ripoff. I think this detailed explanation illustrates just how ham-fisted the character development has become.
There's a rumor going around that D&D wrote this crap while coked out of their minds on some yacht for a couple of weeks. I thought that was just shitposting until this episode, and if you haven't seen the leaks that laid out all of this months ago (and were blasted for being fake), let me just say this: fans haven't begun to be disappointed yet.
I think there's two ways to look at these episodes. You can compare them to what they were, which is a perfectly reasonable approach, and if you do you'll find they get progressly less satisfying and worse since about series 5 or 6, and 8 is kind of horrific. There's nothing wrong with that approach because a show needs to be held up to scrutiny.
Or you can take the other approach, which is to just accept that the plot has gone to shit and appreciate the massive spending budget, the editing, the first fantasy show that's ever been any good, and the show itself as a cultural movement. And when you watch it like that series 8 becomes one of the best series in the show (I know, its blasphemy). I get that it can't be that way for every peice of media we consume, but the sheer epic-ness of this last series blew my mind a little. In my heart I want to hate it but I just can't, although I guess that's because I'm not a die hard fan who's read all the books and stuff. I get your point, and you're probably right but I just can't not enjoy these final episodes.
The dismally poor ending, I'm afraid, might actually stick a fork in the potential of having future fantasy shows. Supposedly there is a Wheel of Time series in the works, how much rope are they going to allow it if GoT loses all cultural cachet?
Oh, I'm enjoying them immensely. I can watch them both ways, but when it's time to talk about the show, exploring the flaws is all part of the fun. We're going to have memes for years on this one.
I didn't mean to say that Dany actually was the hero people saw her as. Ever since she was disturbingly accepting of Khal Drogo's atrocities in season/book 1 I've been expecting something like this once she got to Westeros. I was more making the point that most of the fandom saw her that way (especially the more casual side) and the show itself was happy to lean into that to the point where a lot of people thought her sudden "turn" felt out of character. (That's not entirely without merit though; this season was pretty rushed.) If you're interested in more of my thoughts on this I made a post a few days ago on the /r/asoiaf subreddit where I tried to push back against the idea that Dany was a virtuous hero who had a sudden out-of-character change: https://redd.it/blvqvm
Book Dany has never been as stable/sane as show Dany, so this does feel like it tracks with GRRM's ending to me (combined with all of the plots going on the show left out). He'd never handle it so artlessly, though. The show failed to set this stuff up properly, so now it feels like a pointless shock choice rather than a logical conclusion. Also, the leaks from months ago have been so, so right - if they are right about who is on the Throne next week, that episode is going to top this one in spades for fan outrage and it'll be nothing at all like the books.
How many parents are out there now regretting naming their children Dany/Khaleesi because she was a 'feminist icon', I wonder?
The problem is that killing Varys is a noble thing to do according to the show own standards. The very first episode shows Ned Stark beheading someone for desertion and that's all good. But killing someone for treason suddenly is horrible because... reasons ?
I think the problem is that its not treason and she knows it. I'm not sure what the actual definition of treason is, but she isn't the true heir and she's doing everything she can to cover that up. Ned killed the man for abandoning his post, something his job requires him to do. Danny killing Varys is covering up a mistake. The noble thing to do, which is what Ned would have done, would be to step down and accept that Jon is the rightful heir.
The true queen is whoever got coronated. If someone has a better claim they would need to press that claim and formally take the title. If the title isn't pressed then it isn't a problem.
What Varys does is actively tries to foment factionalism by pressing Jon's claim on his behalf, contrary to Jon's own wishes. That's totally treasonous. Our modern, republican sensibilities give us pretty restrictive ideas about what counts as "treason." But from the perspective of a feudal system of governance Varys actions were unambiguously, textbook treasonous.
Ned Stark was also arrested and murdered for treason though. He was doing a very similar thing to Varys, uncovering the truth about a government that shouldn't be in power. Yet most people regard the execution of Ned to be unjust. In my eyes both are instances of people trying to do the right thing, but being murdered for it by a tyrannical government which must lie to their subjects about their most basic claim to kingship. From a modern perspective that's not okay, but even in Westeros Ned wasn't okay with it.
Two things. One is that he was literally trying to save the Lannister incest babies from being killed while also trying to ensure a legitimate succession. There’s a lot more to Ned’s actions than Varys’ but part of that is probably because Ned got an entire season for his story to unfold while Varys got about 8 minutes.
Secondly, there is a difference between law and justice. You can violate the law in the name of justice, but the law is still the law.
Yeah that's fair enough. I guess my point isn't so much that Varys didn't break the law but more that Danny acting the way she did was symptomatic of her power complex. She wouldn't be in that situation if she was doing the moral thing imo.
And I mean you're right, if Varys was trying to poison her then she should take immediate action in self defense, but there's no way she would know that he was. All she knew was that he was plotting against her and planning to use Jon's secret against her.
This episode had such a powerful story line, I really liked it.
I agree they could have set up the story with a little more character development prior to this episode.
How did Dany figure out how to fly Dragons effectively against those giant arrows?
Why did Dany destroy the entire city?
Why was Jaime trying so hard to save Cersei?
Why did Arya suddenly not want to seek revenge?
Exactly. An evolution that took two episodes should have developed over two seasons. I'm trying to think back - maybe the initial loss of Viserion to the Army of the Dead could be interpreted as an early sign? Things seemed pretty peachy until the news of Jon's parents though. I certainly didn't think she was at the murder-thousands-of-innocents stage yet.
I actually liked those. I'm assuming it was all buildup for whatever Arya will be doing next week. I'm guessing Daenerys landed on her list.
She'll probably kill Jon and steal his face so she can get close enough to Dany to shank her. At this point I wouldn't put anything past these idiot writers.
The Arya scenes got old real fast. I wonder if the writers know that if you continually do that sort of thing with a character the viewers eventually become desensitized to it?
An eye for an eye. How did I not realize that already? Nice catch.
No, I think you're into something. https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/569707385560498234/577572282759643146/IMG-20190513-WA0032.jpg
He clearly has his hand.
The valonquar prophecy was only canon in the books. I don't think it's ever mentioned in the show.
Am I the only one who didn't enjoy Cleganebowl? Sure, Qyburn did some weird alchemist type shit with the Mountain, but does that mean he is now invincible? Knife through the brain and still unphased? Heck at this rate, I guess he should still be alive at the bottom of the red keep under some rubble.
The idea is that Qyburn turned him into a kind of wight. That Oberyn's poisoned spear killed him for real, and he was reanimated through the horrible magic Qyburn was expelled from the Citadel for practicing.
Well, I guess he landed in fire so we should be good.
That was about using enough bodies to smother the fire to create a bridge.
Wood is flammable, but you don't just throw a ton of logs on a firepit to get a huge fire. That's how you smother a fire. As Gilly said, you have to let it breathe.
The lamp likely soaked the weight in flammable oil. The trench likely had little to no oil, and only to guarantee that the fire would propagate to all of the wood.
Is there any particular reason given for why it worked on the Mountain? As in was his massive figure/strength somehow helpful for his reanimation?
I don't think so.
It's been like, 8 or 9 years since I've read them, but if I remember right then in the books it's not confirmed that Ser Robert Strong is the Mountain at all. Qyburn wants the Mountains body for experiments, and not long after this hulking, silent figure who doesn't seem to ever eat shows up in the Kingsguard.
You arent the only one. I rode the Hype train from the start and was sorely disappointed.
Did I expect Sandor to wash his brother? No.
Did I expect it to be better than watching an old invincible Goldberg wrestling match? Yes.
But thats what weve gotten this season. Disappointment.
When it comes to sword fight, it was a pretty poor one. But to be honest Hollywood rarely do fighting scenes very well (compared to e.g. Japan or China).
The only good thing to come out of this season of GoT was my discovery of nerdrotic's channel. Well, that and the glorious memetic shitstorm that /r/freefolk has become.
I'd say this video sums it all up. Just add thrones to that pile. I'd also like to nominate the phrase 'jump the shark' for revision - thrones has faceplanted so hard this season that I think it's officially topped happy days and any other contenders.
I did enjoy the barbecue, and cleganebowl was fun. All of the characters have become parodies of themselves, but at least this time I could see what the hell was happening. I was expecting more wildfire, though. I can't wait for the pile of excuses people trot out to defend this episode's shitty storytelling.
I liked several parts of this episode. The score was awesome, as always, and the cinematography was top notch. Seeing how destructive dragons are against cities was truly awesome, though a bit at odds with how much power they given to scorpions. But I really disliked the way they portrayed Dany's slide into "madness." They did a poor job showing this to the viewer, especially after years of buildup of a just ruler who cares about innocents. I was annoyed at Arya's constant death defying as she ran through the streets, though I appreciated the attention and the point-of-view of a character on the ground, in the city, being attacked by a dragon.
Jaime's arc was really unfulfilling, as was Cersei's IMO. I guess the valonqar prophecy meant nothing, and Jaime's tussle with Euron and then somehow making it up all those stairs with gaping wounds were bad storytelling, but I guess that's par for the course with the ridiculous survival of characters in deadly situations from the rest of the season.
One of the people I was watching it with described it as "big budget fan-fiction" which seems exactly right. All the technical production stuff is still top notch, but the writing is just lazy and slipshod.
I think they tried to convey that by coming in at odd angles you could effectively neutralize the scorpions. That's why she came down straight out of the sky and then stayed lower than they could effectively fire.
This is a step up from the previous episode. And it definitely fits with the "bittersweet" ending ASOIAF is supposed to have in the books.
Most importantly, Cleganebowl happened and it was glorious. I do wish they'd shown us the full fight uninterrupted, though.
I wish them both being killed by fire involved actually being killed by fire instead of being thrown out of a tower into a fire.
Honestly it would have been best for them to both be so intent on killing each other that they don't notice the whole room in blazes around them until it burns them both dead, rendering their whole fight moot. But conveying themes or actual symbolism doesn't seem to be what the show writers are into.
The universe is amazing, and for most of the first seasons I could understand why a character took an action. I may have disagreed with it, I may have hated the character for it, but most decisions made some kind of sense.
Not so much in S08 or S07.
I like that "the good guys" do bad things and that the bad guys aren't just token bad guys, but the writers haven't done enough to show a character development for Danearys. She's always been ok with grizzly deaths for her enemies but not for innocents.
I'd be interested to hear what people are predicting for next episode. Or what things must the writers avoid - what dumb thing are they going to try that you think they need to avoid?
I think a big part of that feeling is the lack of episodes. I'm sure they have good storylines planned out but they cut a ton of it for the six episode format and end up with viewers confused at the missing pieces.
Dany's breakdown came out of nowhere, but given several more episodes we could have seen it coming. Just.. we didn't, because they tried to rush it into two episodes.
So after 5 episodes....this season has largely been disappointing. I'm not as "Death to DnD" as a lot social media is but this season is clearly hampered by the number of episodes. 6 was just too few. They needed at least 8, if not 10, to really flesh everything out. Hell, a ninth season would've been ideal. Season 8 deals with the Night King, Season 9 deals with who rules Westeros.
Daenerys going full Mad Queen isn't completely out of left field. There's been enough bread crumbs and hints at the possibilty over the 8 seasons but her descent in Mad Queen-dom was so rapid. Dany never shied away from dealing with her enemies harshly but turning Drogon against King's Landing....something she was adamant she wouldn't do in S7.....That's why Jon even took the chance with her in the first place. Because she had the ability to burn King's Landing to the ground but she wasn't. She wanted the people to love her, not fear her. But she's abandoned that and turned her anger against people who had zero to do with her loss. Cersei executed Missandei. Euron killed Rhaegal. The people of King's Landing didn't do that.
If they wanted to really sell Daenerys, the Mad Queen, they needed a few more episodes to really make it believable.
Jaime........him I'm not so irritated with. A lot of people point to 8 seasons of character development being thrown out the window but there's nothing surprising about it. How many people do we know personally that just can't quit someone toxic? Every time they leave, they end up going back. Even when we think they've turned the corner, somehow they still fall back into it. I see Jaime as basically doing the same thing. He simply can't let her go. They came into Westeros together, they're going out together(presumably). We don't see bodies so I could see it possible, however unlikely, that Jaime dies in the cave and Cersei escapes somehow, to visit vengeance on Daenerys for Jaimes death. That could set up Arya crossing Cersei off her list.
Didn't care as much for the Cleganebowl as much as I thought I would. I think it's because they kept cutting away from it so it was impossible to get really sucked in. Thought the ending worked though. Sad to see Sandor die but he went out pretty much the way he wanted. Killing his brother. He was character development done right on this show. Same with Theon.
I didn't care for how the Northmen turned barbaric there, at the end but it's not really surprising either. We except all the Northerners to be honorable like Jon and Ned and even Robb were. But they were the exception, not the rule. War has a talent for turning even the best men into monsters.
All in all, I think DnD are making the best of a bad situation. I think, everything that's happened so far, are things that were logical conclusions for each character but for whatever reason, 6 episodes is what they had to work with and it just wasn't enough to make things believable. Just wasn't enough to really develop the ideas and make them work.
The reason is they were offered 10 episodes but wanted to be done with GoT ASAP.
Yes, but usually it's the other way around (creator wants to keep the show running long past its prime). Usually it leads to the show feeling repetitive. The Simpsons comes to mind as the most classic example, but for me the worst offenders is Stargate SG-1. Burn Notice and Orange is the New Black also come to mind and I'd even mention Seinfeld.
I'm having a hard time thinking about "high quality shows that were cut short by the showrunners getting bored, despite the network giving infinite budget".
All that sweet sweet hollywood money is calling. The actors want to move on in their careers, D&D want to start writing star wars movies (check their IMDB). They were mentally checked out on thrones years ago, I'll bet.
Then that's a major misstep on their part. The show is clearly suffering trying to tie everything up in 6 episodes.