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One thing that I've thought about since the episode ended, in the context of ancient/medieval(up to fairly recently, historically) warfare, what Daenarys did was kind of the norm. They had their chance to surrender when the enemy laid siege, they chose not to surrender when they had an army posted at the gate, scorpions posted on the walls and a scorpion equipped fleet anchored in the harbor. Once all of that was gone and the enemy army was in the city, they chose to surrender. That's not how that works.

History is filled with this kind of thing, and the characters in this setting should be inured to the horrors of that kind of warfare. Sure, some of the noble-born leaders or professional soldiery could've found it distasteful, but back then that was how non professional soldiers got paid, and how lesser nobility got their fortunes. Putting a modern moral compass onto characters in this kind of setting is pretty hamfisted storytelling and a fairly weak way to sow division amongst the lead characters. But hamfisted has been the standard the last few seasons.

I get what the writers are trying to do, but to me Dany was just following the rules of the age. It was terrible, for sure, but that's how it works.

 Kap'n Krump wrote:

 infinite_array wrote:

 nels1031 wrote:
I’m so ready for it to end...

And what was Arya's purpose supposed to be? She doesn't kill Cersei, but she does get a bunch of innocent people killed, and then wastes five minutes of my life staring at a horse before frakking off into the sunset.

I watched the after-episode synopsis, and they said that ayra's purpose in that episode was to be a tour guide through the madness, they likened her to virgil from dante's inferno - a guide for us, the audience, through hell. Which worked well enough, I suppose.

That being said, I loved the scene where she was all 'YOU'RE GOING TO DIE IN HERE COME WITH ME', drags someone out, they instantly die.

It took a *lot* of cues from the BvS-Bruce Wayne-Metropolis sequence, even down to how we only see Daenerys from a distance -- no closeups -- once the burning starts. It's mostly destruction coming from on high from a ground level. And I expect that Arya will be playing the role of Bruce in the next ep.

It also occurred to me after the show that Zack Snyder was probably either cheering on the turned-up-to-11-disaster-p**n, or feeling vindicated and thinking "And you mocked me for 10 minutes of destruction in my movie? This gak has been going on for like an hour!"

But for the episode itself.....yeah it was kind of dumb.

Firstly, the whole point of the scorpions was to be a counter to the dragons. It was supposed to even the fight. But in one episode, the iron fleet *boom* headshotted a dragon multiple times, but in this episode they couldn't even knick the last one.......for no reason.

I mean, if they had given some reason.........like attacking with the dragon at night (say dragons have good night vision), or hell, I'd settle for attacking when the sun would be in the enemy's eyes, or at dawn when they might not be prepared. But nope, dragon attacked in broad daylight, against a prepared and trained enemy force, and they couldn't do anything, for no reason. Didn't make any sense.

I mean, if their defenses were going to be that ineffective, why even make them as a plot point? Why not have her second dragon die in the battle of winterfell?

I didn't love danyris going flying rodent gak crazy, but it at least made some sense in the context of the show. Kind of. But everyone kept telling her that an assault on kings landing would be a complete bloodbath, but she did it, near single-handedly, and only destroyed the perimeter defenses with relatively little bloodshed.

Buuuuuuuuuuuuuut then she just 'YOLO'd' and burned her own capitol down. For no reason. Other than being insane.

Also, dragons breathe fire, not michael bay movies. Not sure how or why the fire breath was cutting stone towers in half, but I guess that's fairly consistent to the show.

The wholesale slaughter of the lannister soldiers kiiiiiiiiiiiind of makes sense, maybe as revenge for the whole red wedding thing, but that was mostly done by the Freys and Boltons, now both dead. The lannisers were behind it, but the rank and file soldiers probably wouldn't know about that. And grey worm and the unsullied don't have anything in particular against the lanniser soliders. Grey worm hates cersei and clegaine, but maybe not the rest.

And the slaughter of civilians by the invading army made zero sense. It was all brutal as hell, but was kind of dumb.

I think a better story overall would have been for once dany went all 'LET THE GALAXY BURN', Jon and the northern forces leading an evacuation would have been a lot better and more fitting.

Because NONE of the people in that city, invaders or defenders, solider or civilian, wanted to stick around while the dragon was burning it down. And it would have set up jon as a hero and maybe given the surviving lannisters a reason to join with him.

Maybe in historical sieges wholesale slaughter of defenders and civilians is common enough for a general sacking of a city, or to send a message, but probably not when your intent is to take over and rule.

Ugh. IDK. I love unnecessary murder and over-the-top violence, but this seemed generally inconsistent with the tone of the show and with good sense in general.

 nels1031 wrote:
One thing that I've thought about since the episode ended, in the context of ancient/medieval(up to fairly recently, historically) warfare, what Daenarys did was kind of the norm. They had their chance to surrender when the enemy laid siege, they chose not to surrender when they had an army posted at the gate, scorpions posted on the walls and a scorpion equipped fleet anchored in the harbor. Once all of that was gone and the enemy army was in the city, they chose to surrender. That's not how that works.

History is filled with this kind of thing, and the characters in this setting should be inured to the horrors of that kind of warfare. Sure, some of the noble-born leaders or professional soldiery could've found it distasteful, but back then that was how non professional soldiers got paid, and how lesser nobility got their fortunes. Putting a modern moral compass onto characters in this kind of setting is pretty hamfisted storytelling and a fairly weak way to sow division amongst the lead characters. But hamfisted has been the standard the last few seasons.

I get what the writers are trying to do, but to me Dany was just following the rules of the age. It was terrible, for sure, but that's how it works.

No. Normal soldiers assalting a city that has refused to surrender, pillaging, killing and raping people was a normal thing.

Burning literally everything to the ground with a dragon was not. And yeah, when your whole character arc is "I'm gonna be different", as others have said, I can see how in the Books she isn't honest about that, but in the series...

She did say she'd break the wheel.

It's a world ruled by Varys' and Littlefinger types or a World ruled by magical dragon lady then I know what I'd choose. Even if she did burn some people. They were happy thinking they had her beat, they would have marched on Winterfell and slaughtered everybody.

"Being different" & "being better" is what got Ned killed, what got Jon killed the first time.

She explicitly said to Jon that it would be fear she ruled by in Westeros.

Um, Varys would have been a pretty good ruler. He genuinely cared about the people of westros more than anything, and did whatever he thought best to improve their lot in life.

I'm not sure I can say the same for magical dragon lady at this point.

 Kap'n Krump wrote:
Um, Varys would have been a pretty good ruler. He genuinely cared about the people of westros more than anything, and did whatever he thought best to improve their lot in life.

I'm not sure I can say the same for magical dragon lady at this point.

But the mad tyrant killed him for it, and so apparently that means doing the right thing is dumb and wrong and we should all just give up and accept the world is garbage, hoping that whichever psycho murders enough decent folk to take the top spot doesn't rack up too high a bodycount.

That's some life philosophy there Gael Knight.

I was ok with the turn of character. Daeneris has always been held in check to some extent by her advisors, long curtailing her most bloodthirsty aspects, and she has been brutal and bloodthirsty in the past. I think however the compression of the show into a half season has not allowed stuff to play out properly, and it has showed, there's a lot of macguffins, loose ends, and abruptly cut off elements (the Golden Company might as well never have been in the show for all the point they served for instance).

With regards to the city being destroyed and classic seige behavior, I'm all for grimdark turns and dark endings, but we have to acknowledge them for what they are, and attempting to excuse Daeneris's actions doesn't do that. She had the city prostrate and at her feet, yielding and casting aside its arms and defenseless against her.

What did she then do? She engaged in a methodical obliteration of the city suburbs and civilian quarters, fleeing resdients, and surrendering soldiers, and seemingly heedless of her own forces and allies in the process. She intentionally massacres the city population, instead of descending on the Red Keep and Cersei herself. She takes pains to obliterate the city and its residents before she even attempts to strike at the Red Keep and her real enemy, ultimately doing what her father the Mad King never could, revealing that she is no different.

Kings Landing is the largest city in Westeros, with more people than the entire North, and Daeneris probably just killed more people than died in the rest of the show combined.

I'm ok with that turn, enjoyed it even, but lets not make it out like that was anything but a wilfull decision to be bloodthirsty for its own sake and proving her detractors right.


Most amusingly, the laser guided Scorpion ballistas appear to have lost their aimbot hax between episodes

Clearly, TV shows also experience balance updates.

 Yodhrin wrote:

 Kap'n Krump wrote:
Um, Varys would have been a pretty good ruler. He genuinely cared about the people of westros more than anything, and did whatever he thought best to improve their lot in life.

I'm not sure I can say the same for magical dragon lady at this point.

But the mad tyrant killed him for it, and so apparently that means doing the right thing is dumb and wrong and we should all just give up and accept the world is garbage, hoping that whichever psycho murders enough decent folk to take the top spot doesn't rack up too high a bodycount.

That's some life philosophy there Gael Knight.

Varys says he cared but stirring up constant war did not help the people. Dany had the ability to rule over the upstart Littlefinger types and the Tywin's of the world through her dragons alone. She wasn't perfect but nobody is. The little people of Westeros value stability. Dany would have brought that had she been handled better.

Dany promised to let the Iron Islands rule themselves, I see no reason other plot convenience why she was angered by Sansa asking about the North.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
Clearly, TV shows also experience balance updates.

Update 8.5 patch notes. The developers feel that the Scorpion was clearly too powerful in update 8.4, and have reduced accuracy and rate of fire in light of their tremendous effect on the metagame with their previous stats, and will be removed entirely with the release of update 8.6

 Vaktathi wrote:

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
Clearly, TV shows also experience balance updates.

Update 8.5 patch notes. The developers feel that the Scorpion was clearly too powerful in update 8.4, and have reduced accuracy and rate of fire in light of their tremendous effect on the metagame with their previous stats, and will be removed entirely with the release of update 8.6

But now Dragons are OP game breaking and table everything.

 nels1031 wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
Clearly, TV shows also experience balance updates.

Update 8.5 patch notes. The developers feel that the Scorpion was clearly too powerful in update 8.4, and have reduced accuracy and rate of fire in light of their tremendous effect on the metagame with their previous stats, and will be removed entirely with the release of update 8.6

But now Dragons are OP game breaking and table everything.

Working As Intended™

 Vaktathi wrote:

 nels1031 wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
Clearly, TV shows also experience balance updates.

Update 8.5 patch notes. The developers feel that the Scorpion was clearly too powerful in update 8.4, and have reduced accuracy and rate of fire in light of their tremendous effect on the metagame with their previous stats, and will be removed entirely with the release of update 8.6

But now Dragons are OP game breaking and table everything.

Working As Intended™

They're only doing this to drive Dragon sales even further, as they are popular in a meta now.
First they got rid of Wight Walkers in patch 8.3 after human players whined about their undeath mechanic, and now its just going to be Game of Dragons. This system is going to gak.

 Gael Knight wrote:

 Yodhrin wrote:

 Kap'n Krump wrote:
Um, Varys would have been a pretty good ruler. He genuinely cared about the people of westros more than anything, and did whatever he thought best to improve their lot in life.

I'm not sure I can say the same for magical dragon lady at this point.

But the mad tyrant killed him for it, and so apparently that means doing the right thing is dumb and wrong and we should all just give up and accept the world is garbage, hoping that whichever psycho murders enough decent folk to take the top spot doesn't rack up too high a bodycount.

That's some life philosophy there Gael Knight.

Varys says he cared but stirring up constant war did not help the people. Dany had the ability to rule over the upstart Littlefinger types and the Tywin's of the world through her dragons alone. She wasn't perfect but nobody is. The little people of Westeros value stability. Dany would have brought that had she been handled better.

Dany promised to let the Iron Islands rule themselves, I see no reason other plot convenience why she was angered by Sansa asking about the North.

Whereas I'm of the view that someone who's capable of burning a city and its entire populace to ash in a spiteful rage isn't even remotely capable of providing "stability"; she would go Mad Queen sooner or later, but even if that weren't the case and she had a long and peaceful reign, her core justification for slaughtering the city(butcher all these people to install me as ruler now, save generations from slavery and oppression later) is nonsense because the reality is she never did want to "break The Wheel", just install a new Targaryen dynasty on the Iron Throne and start it spinning once more. So what happens in twenty years when the next Littlefinger type comes along and poisons her, or someone manages to kill off her last dragon, or heck if she lives a full life and dies? Another butcher, another war, another slaughter, and the truth is revealed - King's Landing didn't burn to save future generations, it burned because Dany is just another tyrant despite the best efforts of her advisors and the lies she tells herself.

The message of the show, hamfisted as the execution has been, appears to be that the only way positive change happens is if all good people everywhere do good things, everyday, as a matter of course, even if that comes with a great personal cost - relying on a messianic liberator will just end up lumping you with a different flavour of oppression. I think that's a solid message myself.

To be fair to the writers, GRRM revealed in an interview that the network gets involved and pushes for more screen time or changes for certain characters based on their Q rating.

It seems to me like Bronn, Daenerys, Cersei and Euron all experienced this to varying degrees.

I think Eurons the only one that got extra screen time compared to the books. The others all basically had their stories from the books with bronn probably consolidating a few characters.

 Yodhrin wrote:

 Gael Knight wrote:

 Yodhrin wrote:

 Kap'n Krump wrote:
Um, Varys would have been a pretty good ruler. He genuinely cared about the people of westros more than anything, and did whatever he thought best to improve their lot in life.

I'm not sure I can say the same for magical dragon lady at this point.

But the mad tyrant killed him for it, and so apparently that means doing the right thing is dumb and wrong and we should all just give up and accept the world is garbage, hoping that whichever psycho murders enough decent folk to take the top spot doesn't rack up too high a bodycount.

That's some life philosophy there Gael Knight.

Varys says he cared but stirring up constant war did not help the people. Dany had the ability to rule over the upstart Littlefinger types and the Tywin's of the world through her dragons alone. She wasn't perfect but nobody is. The little people of Westeros value stability. Dany would have brought that had she been handled better.

Dany promised to let the Iron Islands rule themselves, I see no reason other plot convenience why she was angered by Sansa asking about the North.

Whereas I'm of the view that someone who's capable of burning a city and its entire populace to ash in a spiteful rage isn't even remotely capable of providing "stability"; she would go Mad Queen sooner or later, but even if that weren't the case and she had a long and peaceful reign, her core justification for slaughtering the city(butcher all these people to install me as ruler now, save generations from slavery and oppression later) is nonsense because the reality is she never did want to "break The Wheel", just install a new Targaryen dynasty on the Iron Throne and start it spinning once more. So what happens in twenty years when the next Littlefinger type comes along and poisons her, or someone manages to kill off her last dragon, or heck if she lives a full life and dies? Another butcher, another war, another slaughter, and the truth is revealed - King's Landing didn't burn to save future generations, it burned because Dany is just another tyrant despite the best efforts of her advisors and the lies she tells herself.

The message of the show, hamfisted as the execution has been, appears to be that the only way positive change happens is if all good people everywhere do good things, everyday, as a matter of course, even if that comes with a great personal cost - relying on a messianic liberator will just end up lumping you with a different flavour of oppression. I think that's a solid message myself.

I think the hype Kween train made her a messiah but nothing really would stop things from changing because it's the nature of people that's the problem not any one particular person. Jon Snow is the "best" one and he's struggled a fair bit. The Stark's generally were pretty decent and they get betrayed.

I think if Varys had really been gunning for Dany on the Iron Throne he would have sought to marry her to Jon Snow despite the incest. What's one more generation of lesser incest for a positive outcome? A balance between Jon's strength of character and Dany's strength of will. Sansa married to Gendry. Bran in Winterfell.

 Hulksmash wrote:
I think Eurons the only one that got extra screen time compared to the books. The others all basically had their stories from the books with bronn probably consolidating a few characters.

Bronn got more time. Illyn Paine was Jamie’s trainer and companion in the books, specifically because He couldn’t talk and tell people how bad Jamie was with his left hand. Bronn gets married to Lolly’s and gets his castle around Tyrion’s trail and is not really seen again. I get why this was done for TV as dialogue is a big thing and mutes are bad for dialogue. He is the main one I see with more time. Heron only came around in the last book so his role is unclear as far as time “on screen” in the books. The others that got more time compared to the books that I can think of are Margery Tyrell, the sand snakes, Tormund and Olena Tyrell.

Well, Euron is an amalgam of Euron and Victarion...made more cartoony and stupid. The issue with him is that he was a favorite device that the showrunners used anytime something needed to happen. I doubt that Euron or Victarion will be used similarly in the books.

Cersei is explicitly a character who isn't as smart as she thinks, but she seemed to become a mastermind once we left the book material. And Daenerys got a major likeability makeover in the show IMO. And Bronn...good lord. He went from a sellsword to a friggin' superhero. I think there were reasons for this that have a lot to do with how characters were trending.

Bronn was a pretty cool guy in the books though, so I can see how they got there with him.

After this past episode I definitely think we are back to Cersei not being as smart as she thinks. She was super cocky in Ep. 4, she had scorpions, had just killed a dragon, had rested troops etc and got absolutely trashed.

We also have to accept that as the show proceeds ever further from what’s in print, it’s very likely the outlines provided by GRRM became ever sketchier. Possibly just overall ‘X does this, Y does that, the other is either A, B or C, I’m not quite decided’.

I don’t envy the showrunners here. And I think they’re getting some unfair stick amongst the fair. They started out adapting quite in-depth novels. There’s a lot to go on there. But as those dried up, and GRRM showed ever less interest in his Magnum Opus, they were stuck between a rock and a hard place.

Yes, this season isn’t the best. But it was never going to be. It’s the final season of a show which had to have a narrative end. No matter what you include or leave out, delve into or gloss over, there’ll be those in the fandom feeling somewhat short changed.

I think they’re doing about as well as could be expected. Their time and budget is finite. There are many threads to be tied off. And they’re getting there.

Me? I’m most interested to see how well it works on a binge watch, rather than episodic. I’ve enjoyed the previous seasons far more when I’ve been able to watch them end to end.

I haven't seen anything since the end of Season 1 and I read some of the books, but I've read the spoilers on Dany going crazy.
I think the anger at what happened in The Bells comes from emotion. The viewers wanted her to be good. They have spent so long with her and want her to succeed because they love the person. Now that she's lost it, there is article after article on how she has been ruined because their heroine has fallen. Looking at it without any emotional investment in her, I think her actions are entirely in character.
The Dany I remember was a cold, cruel conqueror who subjugated defenseless people with her Dothraki horde, took places with her Unsullied slave legions and once burned a shaman to death for her (totally justified) refusal to return Khal Drogo to life.
"You will not hear me scream" -the shaman
"I will" -Dany

So now Dany has King's Landing and she torches it in a 'Carthage Must Be Destroyed' moment. In medieval sieges, sometimes there is no option to surrender once the fighting has begun. I suppose she might alienate her followers (including ...Tyrion? When did that happen? And are Arya and the Hound best buddies now? I thought Arya hated him.) but for a fantasy show that prides itself on realism, this is a very realistic mistake.

It honestly feels like this with so many shows with final seasons. They are always hated for X reasons. The most common being that not everything is wrapped up the way people want.

Endings for a sprawling story are hard to write. I feel like there was indeed a decline in quality in seasons 5 and beyond. But this is also where the books start to decline and George lost control of his story. an unpublished, unnfished isn't better or worse than a finished show, It just doesn't exist.


And Dany is perfectly in character indeed, she is incapable of dealing with mild. People either love her and are good (Unsullied, Missandei etc.) or hate her and are bad (Slavers/cercei). She can't handle the middle grey area of we grumblingly serve you (the North/Sansa/ Hizdahr).

 CuddlySquig wrote:
I haven't seen anything since the end of Season 1 and I read some of the books, but I've read the spoilers on Dany going crazy.
I think the anger at what happened in The Bells comes from emotion. The viewers wanted her to be good. They have spent so long with her and want her to succeed because they love the person. Now that she's lost it, there is article after article on how she has been ruined because their heroine has fallen. Looking at it without any emotional investment in her, I think her actions are entirely in character.
The Dany I remember was a cold, cruel conqueror who subjugated defenseless people with her Dothraki horde, took places with her Unsullied slave legions and once burned a shaman to death for her (totally justified) refusal to return Khal Drogo to life.
"You will not hear me scream" -the shaman
"I will" -Dany

So now Dany has King's Landing and she torches it in a 'Carthage Must Be Destroyed' moment. In medieval sieges, sometimes there is no option to surrender once the fighting has begun. I suppose she might alienate her followers (including ...Tyrion? When did that happen? And are Arya and the Hound best buddies now? I thought Arya hated him.) but for a fantasy show that prides itself on realism, this is a very realistic mistake.

Well, I think you missed a lot of important character moments with Daenerys, having not seen the last seven seasons of the show.

She said "mercy is our strength" basically hours before burning innocent women and children to death. No doubt that she's had moments of *ruthlessness* all along. So one can cherry-pick that stuff and say it all fits. But everything in between those moments showed a different character. What's probably worse is that it framed her actions as an emotional tantrum after one advisor is killed and her nephew/boyfriend doesn't want to sleep with her anymore. That's the opposite of the ruthlessness she'd shown to date.

To be clear, I have zero problem with the heel turn. I expected it in the books...I just wasn't sure if the showrunners would go there. But it wasn't earned in the show. They could have planted more seeds throughout the past couple seasons. But I think they wanted 'Team Daenerys' on board until the turn.

Parents, this is why you don't name your kids after fictional characters without knowing their whole arc.

I think you missed all the words she said AFTER “mercy is our strength”.

I think alot of people saw Dany as good was because her part Viewpoint in her stories was the only one in the Old Valyria.
We didnt see her through other eyes for along time, just her eyes.
And because she was the focus, She must be good right?

"Our fathers were evil men, all of us here. They left the world worse than they found it. We're not going to do that - we're going to leave the world better than we found it."

“Unsullied! Slay the masters, slay the soldiers, slay every man who holds a whip, but harm no child. Strike the chains off every slave you see!”

Versus a temper tantrum. It's fundamentally different.