Okay, ranting time. My main issues are character motivations, character agency, and character consequences for their actions... The main crux of this show has always been character motivations have consequences for their actions... This season been nothing to do with consequences directly and always feel contrived because of what is being written.

The Cersei looking out a window for like two episodes removed the agency and power of that character. She has DONE NOTHING This season directly. She didn't command, she didn't do anything but have the golden company. She just sat or stood in place drinking wine, but nothing very interesting or conducive to her character happened till she got well murdered by rocks. That is something I despise about this season is that all the women have been portrayed negatively. It is extremely sexist writing with characters who should have agency DONT.

This all felt so forced for this character.

Cersei could've done so much like lighting all the wildfire caches while dany's army attacked. This would force dany to go crazy as well fearing Jon and grey worm dying. She sees now the only way to save her army or take vengeance for her dragon rhaegal would be to attack Cersei head on and burn down the red keep thus killing everyone inside including refugees. Instead, we get this very forced and unearned moment where dany goes crazy with only two episodes of build up. And if that. If these writers KNEW dany was going to go crazy they did not set her up to do so. hence table-flip by most people.

I still loved most of the episodes but nothing felt earned for these characters.
Would give a bit more agency to some characters, and would remove the worst part of the show (euron) from interacting and being a sniper. Euron is the worst part of the adaptation thus far, and even the actor of Euron wishes it was BOOK Euron and not this swashbuckling jack sparrow. He feels out of place in this medieval environment

He isn't interesting, he just teleports around and does crap. WE DON'T HATE His character, people hate how he is written into the show, he feels forced, and contrived.

Her going mad has not to be eluded to but for the past two episodes, we can see this when they forced the audience to see very specific times where she :

1. watched her brother die who had abused her, promised to rape her, and more and she watched him die because she hated him was shown to be a victory moment for her, is now shown to be negative?

2. When she murdered the slave masters who had hung children from crosses and dany executed the slave masters in the same way because she hated slave owners.

3. Her entire motivation and arc has been: "I am not my father." throughout the series she has shown empathy, and became sad when her dragon killed an innocent child and locked up her dragons, and then executed those who did not obey her... like most monarchs.

And then we get to this episode and we have no character reasons as to why she does go mad. She has no agency to her character for the entire season. (Not even getting into Jon snow who is just been a glorified extra the whole season and has done nothing of worthwhile in the past three episodes, yes he gathered allies, but has done nothing DIRECTLY to influence the episodes)

This show feels rushed, insanely contrived, and characters feel flat compared to what they were before. I love this show to death, but man oh man I cannot handle how poorly they've handled the characters and the plot. If they had taken their time with a full season instead of this rush job the show would've been better.

We are seeing the issue of rushing on a deadline, the writers clearly do not care about this world as much as the audience does. Because of this, there are so many inconsistencies that it is amazing how many mistakes are in this season with character motivations, character names, characters just disappearing entirely from existence, or travel time.

The characters motivations as it right now does not make sense as someone doesn't just snap without declining abilities to reason. A similar character would be Ramsay or Joffery. Ramsay was always crazy, and Joffery was just a spoiled child/brat who didn't understand consequences.

They could change so much with this feeling of disappointment with:

Rhaegal to die in the battle for kings landing it would at least FEEL earned for Dany to go Mad Queen. (baring other things happening, her world collapsing and her loyal servants being wounded thus JUSTIFYING her actions to herself)

Missandei dying to artillery or being captured in the middle of a raid... (Which would add some credibility to the field battles)

Jon failing to protect Missandei from the Mountain and being wounded.

Bran controlling something and contributing to the story after his arc.

Arya being wounded during the fighting by scared refugees.

Cersei lighting the wildfire to kill some of Dany's soldiers and succeeds but is caught in an explosion from dany's dragon in retribution and is being crushed by a statue of a stag. (METAPHOR)

Jamie then mercy killing his sister who was dying from the fallen statue in love and running off to ring the bells for the cities surrender and then succumbing to the wildfire as it consumes him and most of the city,

All these are far more worthwhile than what the audience got was silly character motivations and feeling like all the characters are reading from a script and not acting as characters, but actors reading a script. This ranged from Vary's doubting Dany's reign when she has DONE NOTHING TO WARRANT THE DOUBT! Other than she is a woman. (When was Varys ever sexist?) To Euron the mystical pirate sniper and Sansa not trusting Dany for no reason whatsoever.

So much of this could've been prevented if they had taken their time to build characters and their relationships.

Character motivations would be far more interesting and would give agency to ALL these characters if they took their time to build them. I do not like this show anymore and it saddens me that it does.

Any way /rant over.