In fairness she did handle Sansa kind of well, because Sansa was basically acting pretty disrespectful. Chances are if she wasn't Johns sister and she was trying to be in good graces with the north, it might have been a different outcome. Then again Sansa is a little snake anyway. I don't think she has any idea what Dany really is capable of but she sees those dragons and it's like living with another sword over her head, like with Ramsey and Joffrey that's her true concern. She supposedly the smartest person Arya knows , so it's hard to believe she had no idea what she was setting in motion when she told Tyrion. Even more so the person most likely to hurt in all this is John. The Jamie stuff was pretty foul too after he had fought to save Winterfell, she could have saved her little two cents.

 

You can have the best of intentions and still act like a tyrant - it's amazing how people can justify their actions if they believe that they're doing it for the right reasons. The real problem isn't that Dani has gone full jack-boot tyrant on us, but rather that the change has been compressed into a few episodes, making it seem sudden. Besides, there's always been a streak of ruthlessness about her - but again, she's always been able to justify it because of the having acted for the "right" reasons. And now there's the added craziness of her shifting the blame onto others to absolver herself of any wrong doing - such as blaming Cersei for using a human shield and it being Cersei's fault for the fiery deaths of thousands of innocents AFTER they surrendered.

I only just caught up with the episode last night (EU air date and all that) and I have to be honest, I don't see what the fuss is about. The switch in Dani wasn't all that surprising to me, but it's bothered me somewhat that they've compressed the distances so that we end jumping around a week or so here and there. One of the strengths (and also the weaknesses) of the books is that so much happens when travelling anywhere - we spent a lot of time with little incidents on the road that build up to events. Normally a whole shit load of things would happen while Jon and the army are marching to Kings Landing, and this would have been a great time to explore the Dani's progression to craziness and also add a bit more meat to Varys' apparent betrayal.

Even though there's not really anybody left to mess with an army on the march, story would have benefited from a couple of episodes of build-up and that's what bothers me the most. It's all been so compressed and sudden, as if the producers are in a desperate run to the finish line to just have it all over and done with.

I did find the Clegane fight pretty satisfying though - especially with Qyburn getting his brains dashed out against the castle rubble by his own creation. That smarmy little git has always made me cringe internally, so I was happy to see him end that way. I think we've all been waiting for those two to beat the shit out of one another, and it was great see to the contrast between the two brothers; Zombie/Gregor relying own brute strength (he was no different before his transformation) while Sandor was pretty skilled and quite possibly the better fighter of the two.

Overall, I enjoyed the episode - my real beef is the rush job being done on the last two seasons, but I'm fine with the the basic story progression.

 

Wait, you're arguing that Sansa should have not told Tyrion the truth about Jon because then Dany wouldn't have gone crazy? Maybe Dany would have gone crazy at a different point? Maybe its not Sansa's or anyone's responsibility to shield Dany from legitimate criticism and counterclaims to the throne?

For someone who is so adamant about claims on who is the "rightful heir" to the throne, she sure can't tolerate when someone else has a better claim. It was never about the Targaryan family returning to the throne. It was about her.

Dany proved Sansa's point all along. "She can't be trusted." If she hadn't charbroiled KL during the siege, she probably would have charbroiled Winterfell later on when the North reasserts its independence. Sansa simply sped up the process of Dany revealing her true face. Sansa had RBF the whole time but she played everyone in order to achieve her goal of shielding Winterfell. There is no way anyone will fall by her side now.

 

No, you don't understand a character arc with a beginning, middle and end. The show jumped right to the end without actually writing proper justification.

We all knew Dany had the potential to be go "Mad Queen", most of us knew that that was eventually where she was headed. The show failed to write a convincing way to get her to that point. They started laying out breadcrumbs and then jumped straight to the end of the trail and that is not character development. Having minor foreshadowing before going to the end of the arc is not how you write a proper character.

I get her character, its you who doesn't know what good writing is. That's the frustrating thing; you can see where a story is heading and notice foreshadowing, but that alone does not a good story make, it's getting there that matters just as much as the end result. Effort needs to made to justify the route and satisfy the reader/watcher as to how it happened. GOT has failed to do that. No way would the events play out this sloppily in ASOIAF, even if the broad strokes are the same.

 

Remember how devastated she was when one of her dragons burned down a child?How she locked them away for a while?There is no single step to go from that to this.Burning the whole city down for no reason whatsoever,after she won!
G. R.R. Martin probably told them that Dany would become the villain but they didnt have the time or the material or the writing skills to properly develop her so it just ended up being completely stupid,unearned..just garbage

So now they have to kill her in the last episode right?In the trailer they telegraphed Arya to be her killer but its probably a misdirection...I guess only one character has left to do it...probably Jon Snow right?
Also,watching now her vision back in season 1 it makes complete sense

 

I'm saying she knew that once that information got out the trouble it was going to cause and the collateral damage that would happen with people taking sides, ie Varys. If she truly thought she was unstable why would you put your brother (cousin) in harms way. More importantly it can only put John in a tough spot. The whole she can't be trusted, comes off more like she can't be trusted because she's not one of us (family). The fact it was obvious John was more willing to take Dany's side didnt sit well with her or Arya.

Sansa didnt push her over, but by no means are her hands clean she knew she could manipulate the situation by telling Tyrion. I'm probably one of the few people that think Sansa is the people she's patterned herself after (Cersi and Littlefinger). I think people give her too much credit or leeway because she's a Stark. I think she cares nothing about keeping Winterfell safe , but more about keeping herself safe in Winterfell. I doubt shell ever leave it again. When she first meets up with John,her first priority is taking back Winterfell, not how to get Rickon back, she chalked him as a"L" anyway , weird when you talk the pack survives nonsense. Getting Rickon back is the only card that worked on John as he had just came back fromt he dead and they didnt have enough troops to fight a batte for Winterfell, but he has always been about family.

Telling the secret was all about sabotaging Daenerys. She has no answer for dragons or the fact she can't manipulate John with Daenerys around, because what man sides with his sisters over his woman.

 

Daenerys: When my dragons are grown we will take back what was stolen from me. We will lay waste to armies and burn cities to the ground.

Viewers: hell yeah!

Daenerys: I will take what is mine through fire and blood.

Viewers: fuck yeah!

Daenerys: *does just that*

Viewers: well this came out of nowhere, wtf?

 

 

Yes. Totally. Seven years ago when Dany said that what she mean't was that AFTER taking King's Landing and having them surrend to her she would decide to destroy the entire city, the actual castle she was wanting to capture and kill all of the unarmed citizens. It doesn't matter that that she said that when literally wearing rags and being refused entry to a city, desperate to have her handful of survivors not die of thirst. It doesn't matter that she said that before actually being a ruler of anything more than a handful of Drogo loyalists. It doesn't matter that she hadn't began working as hard as she could to abolish slavery in Essos. Characters don't progress in this series, after all, right?

Like, is that really the hill you're choosing to die on?

 

Perfect summary  

 

Game of Thrones Star Conleth Hill Says His Character 'Dropped Off the Edge' After Season 6

 

At this point, I don't see any use in arguing over it. S8 apologists have reached Prequel Trilogy levels of mental gymnastics, where they're unable or unwilling to understand that not liking how a character's fall from grace is handled is not the same thing as not wanting said character to fall in the first place. In the cases of both Dany and Anakin, it wasn't the fact that they fell that made people upset, it was the piss poor development and delivery that people found jarring.

Now that I think about it, doesn't that make D&D the perfect choice for modern SW?

 

It didn't make sense though. Her descent into madness then should have been its own season. In fact, this season feels like 3 seasons worth of material crammed together like one of those Gundam compilation movies.

 

Apparently not because some of us got it while some others didn’t.

Now let me see if I understand...

You say "We all knew Dany had the potential to be go "Mad Queen", most of us knew that that was eventually where she was headed"... and you still maintain that it's out of character? Even tho you say you saw it coming... and then say you didn't see this coming because it's out of character... even tho "We all knew Dany had the potential to be go "Mad Queen", most of us knew that that was eventually where she was headed"?

And we know all this because... of the events that have unfolded thru the show? Which is the... writing?

Uh huh.
Yeah.
Ok.

All I gotta say is that I apparently am more on the same page with the show than you are so it seems odd to accuse me of not understanding it and say that you do while blaming bad writing for it.

 

Well, the prequels ARE better than the sequels.

And I find the initials "D&D" to be amusing in the context of a show that features both dungeons and dragons.

 

The fact that you can't wrap your head around what I'm saying actually paints a fantastic picture of why you're OK that someone can go from point A to point B without the proper character development in a story.

You can foresee where a story is going from foreshadowing, that is different from writing the proper development for the character to get to that point.

Foreshadowing and character development are two very different things. I never said that I "didn't see it coming", but proper writing is needed to satisfyingly get that character to that point without it being terrible. GOT has failed to do that.

 

I dunno- was your post good writing?

Or you just failed to understand and want to blame them instead of yourself.

 

At this point I feel like you're being intentionally obnoxious just in order to be contrary. I'm not continuing this debate any longer, speaking to a brick wall would be less frustrating.

If you don't think character development matters then enjoy, I got into GOT because of the characters and the story, not because of shallow action scenes and shock value. All the more power to you if the writing is not important to you.

 

I got the show that you didn't.

Not much more to say beyond that.

 

There's a few ways the show writers could have corrected this ship of a broken narrative. On one hand, I recall reading about a few years ago is the ending to the series was already planned years in advanced with GRRM's assistance. The problem is they just wanted to get there quicker. Had they kept with the idea of making all six episodes into 90 to 120 minutes long as they were hyped up to being instead of 45 to 58 minutes, Episodes 1 and 2 especially, it wouldn't feel so disjointed and rushed.

Either they should have accepted HBO's offer for more time and put an extra episode between the past two weeks which would have better expanded on a character's descent into madness OR if last week's shocking finale had led into this week's opening moment thus making the episodes occur within the same day..

Spoiler

This would have been the easiest decision, and it would make better sense if they OPENED the episode with the assault on Kings Landing, and then retreat to Dragonstone where Dany's crumbling ranks, inner circle, and mind becomes evident in a more cohesive course of events.. End the episode with her frying Varys and as the other characters are put in a position to be forced to contend with her in the Finale.

However, if they added another episode, they were probably afraid of losing their audience's attention or be accused of "Dragging it out" because they already have the show balancing on a three episode story structure which runs into the same kind of problems as Gundam Iron-Blooded Orphans: Development and planning, Action, and the Resolution to develop the next episode's conflict, albeit haphazardly. Just replace the word "Scorpions" with "Danslief" and you'd get the same kind of reaction.

In the meanwhile, it's pretty clear they already broke that story structure.

Spoiler

S8-1, The characters arrive at Winterfell and sets everyone up for the big battle with the Night King, making peace with their minor conflicts between the cast in attendance..
S8-2, Where the story structure is broken as they're still Waiting for the Night King...
S8-3, Another character arrives, and the battle begins.... Fighting in the dark, which ends with an unexpected (or rather undeserved) rug pull and a body count.
S8-4, Celebrate the Coffee Cup and bury the dead, move on to the next conflict... and the last "Oh sh** they killed another side character" part..
S8-5, Retreat to Dragonstone, and come back to burn it all down, everyone else dies in less than fully deserved ways, but equally expected manners.
S8-6, Tune in next week for the shocking series conclusion, and wait for the fans negative reactions... So long as it doesn't end with Dany sitting on Iron Throne listening to a Journey album before cutting to black.

 

No way it's that bad. You exaggerate. Sounds like we're in agreement over the prequels but not over this.

And D&D has to be able to do better than the new trilogy. Shit, I even feel like the prequels are better than those.