How good is the Game of Thrones finale? - BBC News

Warning: contains spoilers about the final episode of series 8.

One day, a prestige HBO drama will likely be made out of the momentous fall-out from last week’s penultimate Game of Thrones episode. After fans expressed growing discontent with the show, the decision to have Daenerys torch the whole of King’s Landing and its citizens with dragon fire finally blew the roof off the whole enterprise for many – only for others to fire back that these grumblers were wilful killjoys who should accept what was, in their eyes, a perfectly reasonable plot twist. Since last Sunday, the argument on social media has not let up.

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For what it’s worth, I think the events of last week were ruinous, in more ways than one – and it’s also worth emphasising that most of us who moaned about Daenerys’ wholesale transformation into the Mad Queen never thought of her as ‘good’ or expected her to be an upstanding ruler of the Seven Kingdoms – far from it. It’s just that pushing her into committing unprompted mass genocide seemed both a touch extreme and rather too obvious – a clunking privileging of plot over character. But I accept that there is a point at which one’s grievance also becomes excessive, even as a critic.

Which is why, in reviewing this week’s finale, I have vowed to try and be as even-handed as possible. To swallow my objections, take what has happened as read, and see if the ending can satisfy on the terms the creators have now set out. And, largely, it does – beginning with a remarkable, wordless opening sequence in which Tyrion wanders through the ashen remains of the citadel, surveying the wreckage, and the charred bodies. Saturated in grey, the scene eerily evokes a nuclear holocaust – and it is a terrible and powerful irony, of course, that after eight series of fear around the Night King bringing winter to Westeros, in the end, with ash falling like snow, it is human misdeed that should create that seasonal effect in the hitherto sunny King’s Landing.

It seemed likely that, for all the committed cynicism of the show’s worldview, in the final reckoning it would not allow the instigator of such a cataclysm to go unpunished – and so it proves. In a Nuremberg rally-like address to her armies, our self-righteous tyrant Dany suggests her whiffy ‘liberating’ mission is far from over, while kitted out in a fetching but distinctly fascistic black leather ensemble. Then she gets what’s coming to her.

Are we expected to believe that dragons have a finely-tuned appreciation of the symbols of autocratic power? 

Amid what remains of the Great Hall, her nephew-cum-lover-cum-dopey-wingman Jon Snow stabs her through the heart, while snogging her and declaring her “my queen now and always”. The scene, thankfully, really lands – fuelled, perhaps, by the sheer torturedness of their predicament, Kit Harington and Emilia Clarke suddenly find a chemistry that has been notably absent between them up to this point. It is a moment only slightly diminished by the clunking absurdity of what follows, when Drogon makes an appearance. Clearly more than peeved at the death of his mum, he nevertheless refrains from flaming her traitorous boyfriend and instead decides to melt the Iron Throne. Which works well to hammer home the show’s central message about the inherent corruption of monarchical rule, but does beg the question: are we expected to believe that dragons have a finely-tuned appreciation of the symbols of autocratic power? 

People’s vote?

Thankfully, the story recovers its footing in the next scene, when a committee featuring all the show’s surviving lead characters convenes to decide on the fate of the Seven Kingdoms, now that it’s lost two queens in quick succession. I’m particularly glad that, for all that the show has condemned despotic rule, it does not succumb to the pat option of having the characters happily establish a democracy in its place. Indeed, when Samwell Tarly (with a stray water bottle next to his leg, another continuity clanger that has already had the internet frothing) suggests that they might consider having the people vote for their king or queen in future, he is laughed down by his comrades – a knowing upending of expectations, which somehow expresses exactly what has made the series, at its best, so refreshing. 

Instead, what we get is a compromise, both on the part of the characters trying to fashion a secure future for Westeros and the show’s creators David Benioff and DB Weiss, looking for a way to end the story that is neither fancifully idealistic nor impossibly bleak. A new head of state is appointed, but one who has little interest in power for its own sake, and cannot bear children, thus paving the way for a new system of non-hereditary rule, with leaders chosen by an oligarchy. That leader, not entirely unpredictably, is Bran, the seer Stark who finally has something useful to do after many series of slightly superfluous and obscure visions.

He’s a choice that makes narrative sense, though it has to be said that there is something quite humorous about Tyrion’s justification for picking him being that he has the greatest “story” – given that, for many viewers at least, his storyline has been quite the dreariest. In any case, true to the show’s sense of realpolitik, it’s very much only a contingently happy ending: when Jon asks Tyrion if he did the right thing in killing Daenerys, he simply replies: “ask me again in ten years”.

In fact, though, not one but two new rules are established. Those of us who have found ourselves cheering on an ever-more-emboldened Sansa Stark – one of the few characters with a truly well-constructed character arc – can rejoice in seeing her declare the North independent of the other six kingdoms, and crowned as its queen. In other plot tie-ups, Jon is packed off back to The Night’s Watch, as a way to appease Daenerys’ followers while saving him from a death sentence, while, ever the lone ranger, Arya vows to continue her adventuring by travelling West of Westeros into the great unknown. A final scene cuts between the three of them taking up their new destinies, and provides an efficient, if disappointingly uncontroversial, ending.

I think the complaints about the show over the past couple of series have been mostly justified. It’s easy to sneer at Game of Thrones’ so-called ‘entitled’ fans, as some critics have done, particularly when they sign petitions asking for its final season to be remade – but, at the same time, it seems to me perfectly reasonable to be upset at seeing something you have invested so much time in being debased by pure-and-simple bad writing.

However, it is also true that a sprawling epic like this, with chaos built into its very narrative DNA, was always likely to have faults. In fact, that in-built imperfection seems to be wryly referenced in one of the closing scenes, where George RR Martin proxy Samwell reveals he is in possession of a book detailing the history of everything we have seen over the last eight series. And its title? ‘A Song of Ice and Fire’ – the same one, of course, as for Martin’s series of novels. However when Tyrion asks about how he is portrayed in it, he discovers, humiliatingly, that he doesn’t even get a mention. In the end, similarly, some characters were served better than others by Benioff and Weiss – spare a thought for example, for poor Brienne of Tarth, that one time vanquisher of gender norms whose character, in the end, was sacrificed to a gratuitous romantic plotline.

But, finally, let us remember the good times the show gave us – the shocks it provided, the gasps it induced, the caustic quippery it revelled in (Olenna Tyrell 4 Eva), and the sheer amount of conversation it inspired, something which in itself is proof of its cultural power. And hopefully see you back here in the next year or two, to pore over the affairs of Westeros once more, when the upcoming Games of Thrones prequel series begins.

★★★★☆

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2019-05-20 10:31:43Z
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Game of Thrones episode 6: Twitter reacts to the disappointing season 8 finale - CNET

Dany turned conquerer.

HBO

Game of Thrones is over (well kinda, we still have prequels and spin-offs to come) and people are a little upset.

That wasn't great.

Spoilers incoming!

So that was definitely an episode of television. I don't know where to start. Let's break it up by sections.

The opening of this episode was strong. We had Dany turn up with an absolutely show stopping entrance...

And after a bit of discussion and a walk through the carnage, Tyrion Lannister gave up his brooch. He didn't wanna be the Hand/sheriff no more.

Then there was a lengthy, but also pretty well acted scene where Tyrion Lannister and Jon Snow reasoned out the pros and cons of absolutely stabbing Daenerys Targaryen in the back for her insane war crimes. 

Jon Snow did the same tortured "what should I do with this moral quandary" face he's been doing for eight long seasons, and then he did what he always does: the right thing. In this case murder by loving knife in the belly.

That was bad enough, the stabbing I mean. Then the worst part: Drogon's mourning period. Which involved a lot of fire and a complete melting of the Iron Throne.

Drogon is mourning. I am mourning. I'm a mess! Drogon said if my mother can't sit on it, no one can. F*ck all yall. #GameOfThronesFinale

— EYSHA (@spunknsplendor) May 20, 2019

At this point, things seemed good. Good episode, decent-ish writing, good performances. This was the high point of the episode. The Dany death scene was great, Drogon's reaction was great. Sweet, we're getting the Jon Snow ending, right?

Wrong.

This is the point where things went off the rails.

Bran Stark -- perhaps the most irritating character in the show's long history was now the owner of a completely melted Iron Throne. He got the throne by everyone just sort of agreeing he should be king in one of the weirdest scenes in Game of Thrones history.

As you might expect, people were upset.

And from that point on we were in epilogue mode. Jon Snow was back in the newly established Night's Watch. Arya decided to go on high seas adventures. The North became its own Kingdom, meaning Sansa gets to be Queen in the North. Sure, whatever. That makes sense.

Perhaps the one high point: Jon Snow got united with Ghost and people were happy for a while. 

But as the credits rolled, there was an empty sense of disappointment. That's it, the shows over. Are we going to get a spin-off with Arya Stark being an Assassin on the high seas, on Jon Snow adventuring in the North? Probably, but this wasn't the ending we were expecting. It all feels a bit strange.

If you're frustrated with the show, or just flat out need something to fill the Game of Thrones sized hole in your life, here's 11 shows that might help numb the pain.

Farewell Game of Thrones, it's been an amazing (confusing, anger-inducing) eight years.

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https://www.cnet.com/news/game-of-thrones-episode-6-twitter-reacts-with-disappointment-to-the-season-8-finale/

2019-05-20 10:05:00Z
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Fans spot apparent water bottle gaffe in 'Game of Thrones' series finale: report - Fox News

This combination photo of images released by HBO shows Emilia Clarke portraying Daenerys Targaryen in "Game of Thrones."The final episode of the popular series aired on Sunday, May 19, 2019. (HBO via AP)

Fans of "Game of Thrones" spotted yet another gaffe during the highly-anticipated series finale on Sunday.

In the last episode, titled, "The Iron Throne," viewers spotted a plastic water bottle behind the legs one of the characters Samwell Tarly, played by John Bradley.

The scene came around the 46-minute mark of the episode.

The mistake followed another blunder earlier in the season, in which fans spotted a clearly out-of-place modern coffee cup on a table next to the character Daenerys Targaryen. HBO eventually admitted the blunder — saying it was a latte from the set’s craft services.

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2019-05-20 09:18:31Z
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Game Of Thrones S.8, E.6: Recap 'The Iron Throne' - NPR

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Having well and truly landed, Queen Daenerys (Emilia Clarke) surveys the ruins of King's Landing on the final episode of Game of Thrones. HBO hide caption

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HBO

We've recapped the eighth and final season of Game of Thrones. Spoilers, of course, abound.

I mean ... sure?

I am prepared to die on the ashy hill of They Didn't Lay The Necessary Track To Justify Daenerys' Heel-Turn, but that whole contretemps seems soooo last week. I've made my peace with it, and am prepared to dissect the show that they made, not the one we expected/wanted them to.

In the show they made, Daenerys became the monster. Jon slayed said monster, as he was evidently fated to do, and got sent to the Wall without his supper. The Iron Throne got turned into a slag heap, and after briefly flirting with the notion of representative democracy, Bran MacGuffin became King of the Six Kingdoms, Sansa became Queen in the North, and Arya ... went on a cruise. (If you were waiting for her Bag O'Faces to come back somehow, you were disappointed. So let's you and I pretend that she's using it to entertain the ship's crew with her convincing impressions, two shows nightly in the Lido Deck Lounge. Maybe a one-woman deal called Walder Frey: King Leer? Or Heaven Can Waif?)

To business:

We're all born naked; the rest is dragon

After a very short "Previously On" – essentially just Daenerys' decision to serve up the citizenry of King's Landing en flambe, and the death of Jaime and Cersei – we get the credits map, one last time. The only thing of note is that clockwork King's Landing is looking a bit worse for wear, and the throne room window is missing its Lannister sigil.

For all the talk about how rushed this last season has seemed, this final episode contains a lot of scenes that feel ... unhurried, let's say. Reflective. Contemplative.

.... Slow.

Case in point: Tyrion's looooong halftime walk through the charred and smoking ruins of King's Landing. He looks pensive, a lot. He looks sad, a lot. He meets up with Jon, who as you likely expect is way ahead of him on the whole "looking sad" tip (as it's both his vocation and his avocation!).

Jon comes across Grey Worm, who's fixing to execute some Lannister soldiers on Daenerys' orders. This fact causes Jon to look sad (drink!) and plead for mercy, but Grey Worm is unmoved. Jon's all, "Well, I'm telling mom," and Grey Worm's like, "Yeah well she told me you're adopted, so," and proceeds to execute them.

Tyrion enters the ruined Red Keep and heads down to the catacombs, which are a lot less collapsed than they seemed at the end of last week's episode. He finds the bodies of Jaime and Cersei with, it must be said, remarkable ease. (He must have taken "Locate Jaime Lannister In A Wildly Unlikely Way" lessons from Euron Greyjoy.) He weeps over the body of Jaime, and Dinklage sells it well, though I'm less convinced than the show seems to be that we need this scene to justify Tyrion's next step. (They look hilariously pristine for being crushed under tons of rock. Cersei's Carol Brady wig is barely mussed.)

Jon walks up the stairs of the crumbling Red Keep, which now sports a huge Targaryen banner (evidently the King's Landing Party City escaped the flames unscathed). Arya's here too, for some reason, though the last time we saw her she was Hi-Yo-Silvering her way out of the city.

As Jon reaches the top of the stairs, we get a great visual: Daenerys stomps the runway toward him in a new black leather number while Drogon spreads his wings behind her. She is serving you Dragon Queen/Maleficent realness, and I remain resolutely here for the proverbial it.

In a speech to the assembled Unsullied and Dothraki (with Drogon throwing in the occasional screech, acting as the Joe C. to her Kid Rock), Yaaaas Queen Daenerys vows to continue her war, freeing the entire world from tyrants. "Will you break the wheel with me?"

They answer in the affirmative, while Tyrion confronts Daenerys about her recent dabbling in wholesale slaughter. He removes his Hand of the King brooch (but does not attempt to stab her with it) and is taken into custody, while Jon ... looks sad some more. Again. Still.

Arya sneaks up on him, and warns him that Daenerys will see him as a threat. ("I know a killer when I see one," she says, about a woman who just turned thousands and thousands of people into ash. I mean: Yeah. Well spotted. Insightful input, there.)

Jon visits the imprisoned Tyrion, so that the writers can have Tyrion patiently explain to the maddeningly slow-on-the-uptake Jon about the danger Daenerys represents. Which is to say: To deliver even more exposition about how she will convince herself what she is doing is right. Jon gets defensive (and gets a look on his face like he's trying to do long division), but we're meant to register that Tyrion's swayed him.

Kiss kiss stab stab

Jon walks past Drogon (who regards him warily) on the way to the throne room, where Daenerys is busy experiencing wicked déjà vu. Her vision, back in the House of the Undying, of a throne room in ruins and covered in snow/ash is realized. But before she can actually park her keister on the Iron Throne, Jon enters, shouting about the "Little children! Tiny, tiny babies!" that she burned up just now.

Daenerys is cool and calm, refusing to pardon Tyrion, despite Jon's pleas. She entreats him to join her in her whole wheel-breaking endeavor, because she knows what's right, and that's enough. That certainty – and her acknowledgment that she and Jon, and no one else, get to choose the way forward, for everyone – are the things that the writers want us to register as red flags. She's not breaking the wheel, they seem to say – she's just changing a tire.

They kiss, he stabs her, she dies. Just another wacky episode of Keeping Up With The Targaryens.

Drogon senses the death of his mother, and lands in the ruined throne room. He gives her corpse a few tentative, inquisitive pokes, and then fixes Jon with a hard stare, like Paddington with eczema. If he roasted Jon in dragon fire right now, it'd make a kind of inevitable sense – but he doesn't. Why he doesn't isn't clear. Maybe Jon's Targaryen blood acts as a kind of universal Get Out Of Jail Free card? Maybe the Targaryens of old were always getting up to slaughtering each other, so their dragons became inured to it? Or maybe Drogon had some unresolved mommy issues, all this time?

Whatever the reason, Drogon spits fire not directly at Jon, but past him – at the Iron Throne. Which was, you'll recall, originally forged by dragon fire from the swords of Aegon the Conqueror's enemies – and is now reduced to a slag heap, 300 years later, as another Aegon Targaryen looks on.

Drogon picks up Daenerys and peaces out.

Some unspecified amount of time later, Tyrion is taken to the dragonpit by Grey Worm, where the lords and ladies of the remaining Great Houses of Westeros are assembled.

Among them: Samwell Tarly, Edmure Tully, Arya, Bran and Sansa Stark, Brienne, Davos, Gendry, Yara Greyjoy (yay!), some dude lounging around in an ornate, brightly colored dressing gown who must be the prince of Dorne mentioned a few episodes back, Yohn Rocye and Robin Arryn.

Sansa asks about Jon. Grey Worm says he's still a prisoner.

This stopped me for a second – after all, there was no one else in the throne room when Jon killed Daenerys, and Drogon left with her body. How, I wondered, would anyone know what happened to her?

I wondered this for exactly two seconds, when I remembered that this was Jon we're talking about. Mr. Truth and Honor. He probably marched right up to Grey Worm after doing the deed all like, "I killed your queen yep it was me with my dagger which was still in her body when Drogon took her so you'll just have to take my word for it but yep I did it me I'm the murderer."

Yara and Sansa get into a back-and-forth over which tyrant – Cersei or Daenerys – was better. Davos, peacemaker he, attempts to reason with Grey Worm by thanking him for helping against the army of the dead (remember them, guys? Remember that?). He offers the Unsullied land of their own, but Grey Worm rejects the offer, and insists that Jon remain prisoner.

Tyrion then pipes up, urging the assembled lords and ladies to choose their king. Just like that.

And just like that, Grey Worm is mollified. "Sure, go nuts with that," he seems to say. "We're occupying your city, but I'm weirdly a-okay with this whole 'elect your own king' plan, all of a sudden, for no reason I can point to."

Inexplicable? Sure. But coming so fast on the heels of Daenerys Burns King's Landing Instead Of Just The Red Keep, to say nothing of Drogon Spares The Life Of The Mopey Dude Who Murdered His Mom, inexplicable seems to be the new normal, so let's hurry past it.

Edmure Tully, hilariously, puts himself forward as a potential king, only to get shut down by Sansa. Samwell, bless him, suggests establishing a representative democracy, which is greeted by chortling. (If you're scoring at home: The Wheel? Still unbroken. Barely dented.)

Davos asks Tyrion who they should choose – and Grey Worm looks down at him, too, like "yeah, who?" which still doesn't make any sense – and Tyrion gets a nice little speech about the power of ... stories.

"What unites people?" he asks. "Stories."

(If he's talking about this particular story, he hasn't been hitting the same websites I have.)

Ixnay on the oken-bray

He puts forward the name of ... Bran MacGuffin himself. "Bran the Broken," he calls him, as he ticks off his LinkedIn page. Tyrion's logic, here, is that Bran would make a good king because "He is our memory. The keeper of all our stories."

Sansa points out that Bran can't father children (how does she know that, exactly?) And Tyrion's like "Bonus!" because he's got a plan: From now on, rulers will be chosen, not born. And they'll start with Bran, who doesn't want to rule – except it turns out he does!

Over the course of the series, both Tyrion and Varys have espoused the philosophy that the best ruler would be someone who doesn't want to rule – this was why Jon seemed to them such an excellent candidate. Here, though, Tyrion is taking that rubric to its logical extreme. Jon didn't care about ruling. But Bran doesn't care about ... well. Much of anything, anymore. He's said it himself – he's barely present, and spends his days stuck in the past. Dude is not just impassive, he's nearly catatonic.

But that's the plan: Long live King Bran the Broken, I guess. (Not the most inspiring of epithets. Bran the Steel-Cut sounds cooler, but I didn't get a vote.)

Speaking of voting, the lords and ladies assent to King Bran the Perpetually Distracted – but Sansa stands up for the North, which will remain independent.

They stand, the music swells, they shout "All hail Bran the Broken!" – really rubbing it in – and Bran just stares into the middle distance like he's trying to remember the lyrics to "Friday I'm In Love."

Bran chooses Tyrion as Hand of the King, of course. Grey Worm's like "No way!" and Bran the My God Man Will You FOCUS is all like "Yes way!" and that, remarkably, is that.

... Except not quite. We cut to Jon, who by the look of his lustrous locks, has been a prisoner for a while. Tyrion informs him that to placate the Unsullied, Jon is being sent to the Night's Watch.

Jon, speaking for the viewer: "There's still a Night's Watch?"

Fair question – with the Night King dead and the Wildlings markedly less wild, what does the Night's Watch ... have to watch, exactly? Are they just so many surly beardy park rangers who smell like ripe cheese?

But that's where he's headed – back to Castle Black. "No one is very happy," Tyrion says, having lurked on Reddit.

Jon asks if killing Daenerys was right. "Ask me again in 10 years," Tyrion says, which at this rate is what George R. R. Martin should say when anyone grills him about The Winds of Winter.

The Winterfell Four come together one last time. Jon and Sansa share an emotional moment. Arya informs everyone that she's headed west of Westeros, past where the maps stop. She and Jon embrace, another emotional moment.

Jon and Bran the I'm Sorry Did You Say Something I Was Miles Away look at each other. And then Jon takes off.

Brienne leafs through the book listing Westeros' knights, and their noble feats. She comes to Jaime Lannister's page, which is largely blank, and proceeds to update his wiki with noble deeds.

Talk to the hand

In the Tower of the Hand, Tyrion repositions chairs (callback!) as he waits for the rest of the Small Council to show up. Soon they arrive – Ser Bronn, who's finally gotten his castle (Highgarden), Davos, and – clutching a tome called (wait for it) A Song of Ice and Fire, Sam Tarly, in a maester's robe. The book, we learn, is the one Archmaester Ebrose was writing during Sam's brief stay at the Citadel – a history of the recent wars. ("I helped him with the title," says Sam.)

Tyrion is a bit put out that he doesn't merit a mention in Ebrose's book, but the Council gets onto the business of running a kingdom. Ships, food, sewers and – because fish gotta swim, birds gotta fly, and Thrones gotta Throne – brothels. King Bran the Glassy-Eyed shows up with Brienne, and we learn that Podrick has gotten himself a knighthood as well.

At Castle Black, Jon reunites with Tormund and – finally, as if to quiet one particularly vociferous corner of the internet – with Ghost, who's looking a bit worse for wear.

In a brief montage, we see Jon, Arya and Sansa go about their new lives. Sansa takes her position as ruler of the North, Arya stands on the prow of a ship flying Stark sails, gazing forward ... well, Westward, anyway.

And Jon leads a party of Wildlings north of the Wall. This bit puzzled me, at first – I wasn't sure what we're supposed to take away from such a mundane walking scene.

But I think it's meant to act as a positive mirror-image of the threat that dominated the show for so many seasons – instead of Death, inhuman and inexorable, marching south to massacre humanity, this is Life, walking north – humanity moving forward, into a hostile, unforgiving terrain.

And that is that. Gotta say this episode felt more like a season finale than the series finale it was, if only because this last season seemed so isolated from what went before.

Thanks for reading these things, which were pounded out in the wee small hours. It's been fun, but I gotta admit that for the past few weeks I've been looking forward to typing the following words:

And now my watch is ended.

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https://www.npr.org/2019/05/20/724868168/game-of-thrones-finale-season-8-episode-6-no-one-is-very-happy

2019-05-20 08:42:00Z
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The high and low points of Game of Thrones’ final episode - The Verge

Warning: spoilers ahead for Game of Thrones’ finale, “The Iron Throne.”

Game of Thrones’ finale left us with a lot to talk about. Like the rest of the eighth and final season, it moved startlingly quickly, skipping ahead weeks at a time and blitzing past some major plot points. At the same time, it finally took a deep, slow breath to linger on some key conversations, and it spent more time resolving the story for ancillary characters than some fans thought it was going to. Right after the finale, we paused to hash out our immediate reactions.

Tasha: Chaim, you’ve already addressed the main plot questions Game of Thrones left behind, but you didn’t address the one that most haunts me: how smart are dragons on this show, anyway? The series finale has Drogon apparently instantly knowing when Daenerys Targaryen dies, and flying up to check on her. But even though Jon Snow helpfully leaves the murder weapon in her chest, Drogon doesn’t seem to realize Jon killed her. And yet he does realize the Iron Throne is symbolically important and was the thing that she most wanted and will now never have, so he slags it with his fire-breath. At least that’s how I took the scene. This whole series has been about who will take the Iron Throne, and the answer “No one!” seems appropriately nihilistic. But like so much of this season, the way it plays out doesn’t entirely make sense either. What did you make of it?

Chaim: I’m honestly pretty satisfied. I agree that Drogon’s oddly specific firestorm was a bit convenient, but given where Daenerys ended up last episode, there wasn’t really a question in my mind that she wouldn’t be surviving the show and keeping the Iron Throne. In the end, she and her dragons did sort of break the wheel, in the metaphorical sense where “the wheel” is a metal chair made of melted swords, anyway.

Plus, having her dragon break the symbol of ultimate authority was poetic enough to work for me — certainly more so than Jon just taking the throne due to murder and a technicality of birth, which would have been an easy way out that I’m very glad the show didn’t take.

Tasha: I’m with you. I’ve spent most of this season frustrated at the quick plot turns and complete lack of nuance — the feeling that we were seeing plot points that would have been brilliant and heartbreaking if stretched out over a season, but that just whizzed bafflingly by when played out over the course of a scene or two. (I’m thinking of things like Varys’ betrayal of Dany and his execution, which barely had time to register before he was dead.) So I was mostly deeply impressed with the finale, in part because the pacing finally slowed down and gave the audience a little time to sit with our emotions, and the characters some time to sit with theirs.

A particular highlight for me: Tyrion’s slow procession through the city and the Red Keep, looking for signs that Jaime did find Cersei and smuggle her to safety. We know what he’s going to find, but the episode gives him a long, slow sequence to find their bodies and process their deaths. Tyrion mourning over his beloved brother and hated sister was one of the season’s most powerful moments, not just because it’s been so long coming, but because it doesn’t blitz by. and because Peter Dinklage’s performance is so strong.

Chaim: I was shocked by how long the episode took to really let us stew in the aftermath. And after glossing over Tyrion’s role for most of the past two seasons, it was really nice to give Dinklage one last chance to shine. Between the scene of him sobbing over his siblings, his heart-to-heart with Jon Snow, and the broken man at the pivotal election who just wants to set things right, it was a great reminder of the calibre of show Game of Thrones could reach when it isn’t just going full “OMG DRAGONZ” on us.

Looking back, it took the show more than a third of the episode to get to the big turn of Jon stabbing Daenerys, which is a remarkable level of restraint on the creative team’s part, letting us stew in Dany’s “victory” for so long. On that note, I’m curious how that ending for Dany sat by you?

Tasha: I’m still not buying Dany’s spontaneous leap from “obsessed with freeing slaves and protecting the innocent” to “fervently believes murdering children is helping them.” That plot point has been hashed out a billion times online over the past week, though, including at least 1.4 million times in our own comment sections, so I’ll just reiterate that the problem isn’t her massive change in behavior, it’s that it was executed in an abrupt, slapdash way. So I was impressed with this episode giving her time to savor having conquered Westeros. It feels like a vote of respect for a character who’s been so important to the show since season 1. I’m glad the showrunners let her briefly experience the triumph she fought so hard for and suffered so much for.

And at the same time, she gets time to prove she really doesn’t see or care about the human cost. Her claim that she “liberated” the people of King’s Landing and will now “liberate” the rest of the world is authentically chilling, because she’s promising more massacres, making it clear she thinks she did everything right here. Her argument with Jon about her actions made it pretty clear that there’s no good ending that has her sitting on the throne. But where you apparently thought the show spent a long time leading up to her death, I thought it disposed with it pretty early in the episode, and I found that a relief. Jon killing her was a foreordained conclusion, so I’m glad the episode didn’t draw it out for an hour and leave us less time to see what the world becomes next.

Chaim: Did… anyone survive in King’s Landing? It occurs to me we didn’t see any civilians left standing at all this episode.

Tasha: That’s not true. There’s Nearly Naked Covered In Burns Guy, and Weeping Alley Soldier, and probably one or two other people. Plenty to build a new population with. And if that’s not enough, there are probably still dozens of other people left alive around Westeros somewhere. Hot Pie can cook for them.

Chaim: Right, right, and The Five Lannister Soldiers That Grey Worm Executes On Daenerys’ Orders And Definitely Not Because He’s Still Angry About Missandei.Totally forgot about those guys.

As for Dany, I feel like the showrunners tried to defend the transition for her with Tyrion’s speech in his cell about her faith that her cause is just. But while he convinced Jon, he didn’t convince me. The argument, “She killed a lot of bad people, which led her to kill a lot of not-bad people” just didn’t work for me. But at least the writers were aware that, like Jon, viewers were going to need some convincing to accept her sudden change in heart.

That plotline in particular feels like it would have benefited from a longer season to grow a bit more, but given the way the season shook out time-wise, it feels like they did the best they could with it. Besides, Drogon did escape with Dany’s body, and if Game of Thrones has taught us one thing, its that no one is ever really dead so long as you can find the right priest.

Tasha: Oh boy, let’s not even go there. Pretty sure he’s either going to eat her out of respect or cremate her out of respect, and we can just leave it at that.

We’re probably always going to be debating Dany’s leap to the dark side, and evidence so far suggests we aren’t going to get anywhere with that debate. So let’s talk about the rest of this episode. Some major high points for me: the cinematography was fantastic. Deserted city or not, it looked amazing covered in falling ash/snow. That shot of a snow-covered Drogon waking up to inspect Jon and deciding he passed muster and could go up for his audience with Dany was particularly lovely and memorable. I loved the slow, sad female-vocal version of the theme song as Daenerys finally sees her goal, the Iron Throne — in a room she shattered to get to it.

We’ll have to talk separately about the actual result of the lords’ summit, but I was impressed that they brought all these characters back. (Someone finally found Edmure Tully! And he has the balls to try to stand up and take the throne, and Sansa gently, rightly, slaps him right back down again!) It would have been so easy to lose the politics entirely in this final episode, and completely forget the show’s roots, but here, we see the first hints of Westerosi traditional society returning. Someone actually thought about who’s left of the great Houses, and who would represent them. They even dusted Robin Arryn off for this meeting! It’s laughable, in a way, that these pale, subdued people are what’s left of Westeros’ leadership, but they’re still arrogant enough to look down on their own people, and laugh at them having any say in their own rule. But I was glad to see Game of Thrones acknowledging its roots, and thinking seriously about who would be in charge of putting the country back together.

Chaim: The Game of Thrones score has always been a highlight for me. Ramin Djawadi, the show’s composer, has been an unsung hero for years, and he just swung for the fences with the music in the finale across the board. I also have to shout out the fantastic shot of Dany, framed triumphant in the Red Keep, Drogon behind her to provide the wings for the Dragon Queen ascendant in the ruins of ash and snow. Oh, and Ghost finally got a pat from Jon, because he is a Good Boy.

I’ll admit, it took me a second to even remember who Edmure Tully was (thank you, costume designers, for including some fish on his lapels), although I’m going to have to disagree on Sansa’s putdown there — there was nothing gentle about it. Dude just tried to walk in after contributing nothing for eight seasons, other than losing Riverrun to the Lannisters and the Freys, and getting the Blackfish killed? And then he tries to take the Seven Six Kingdoms? Nope and nope. Sit down and shut up, Ed. As for Robin Arryn: definitely the Game of Thrones winner of the Neville Longbottom Award for Best Glow-Up over the course of a series.

Which brings us to Bran, or should I say, King Bran the Broken (which, kind of rude title there, Tyrion?), Ruler of the Six Kingdoms, and all the other bits and bobs attached to his name. He’s certainly not the most exciting choice for ruler, but the more I think on it, the more it makes sense to me. He’s practically omnipotent: even if he can’t see the future (and I’m pretty sure he can), he has perfect knowledge of all the mistakes of the past. His weird Three-Eyed Raven zen state means that he doesn’t bear any particular allegiance to anyone or anything that could influence his decisions unfairly. And the ability he possesses to enter the minds of ravens and get nearly instantaneous knowledge of events around the realm seems like a wildly useful thing for a monarch to have, especially in a world where most messages take days or weeks to convey.

Tasha: Yeah, but. While this is all useful and sensible data, in actuality, this is the guy who sat blankly in a frozen courtyard for weeks on end, staring blandly through his sister Sansa when she hugs him hello after not seeing him for years, and barely talking to people except to deliver cryptic information in a creepy monotone. It’s great that he’s a king without ego or desire, but I question how useful his ability to foretell the future is when he so clearly doesn’t act on it, except in the broadest cases. The Battle of Winterfell could have gone very differently, with a lot less loss of life, if he’d shared what he knew, or if there was any evidence he cared about the soldiers falling in battle, and not just the ultimate outcome of the war. And he didn’t even try to warn anyone about the King’s Landing massacre of tens of thousands of innocents?

Being a good, just, and wise ruler isn’t just about power, especially not the power to disappear into a raven’s head to gather intel. It’s about caring about the people and making decisions based on their best interests. It requires empathy, and Bran has none. It requires a desire for justice and peace and balance, and Bran says he’s no longer capable of desiring anything. And in Westeros, it requires being a politician, and Bran is not that.

But he’s still going to make a better king than Jon “I obey the orders of anyone who tells me I’m doing a principled thing” Snow. Throughout the series, Jon makes a lot of strong, risky moral choices — supporting the Wildlings, becoming King in the North, abdicating to follow Dany, killing Dany. It’s always someone else with the idea, though, talking him into it, and pressuring him until he caves. He’s sad-eyed and soft and suffering and people love him, but boy would he have made a weak king.

Chaim: Thing is, I’m not sure who’s left who would have made a better king. Sansa is the only candidate who even comes close to qualifying, and she seems pretty focused on running the North and getting as far away from the Six Kingdoms as possible, not integrating it back in and ruling over the rest of them.

As for the rest: Tyrion, a clear no for the reasons he gives in the episode; Jon, who, as you correctly point out is just completely unsuited for leadership; Edmure Tully, who is just the worst; Sam, who would clearly rather be reading a book; Gendry, who was just legitimized as a heir a few weeks ago by the now-dead queen who razed the city; Yara Greyjoy, who previously razed Winterfell; and the Fresh Prince of Dorne, who is not even a character with a name. Not the best pool of leaders. Will Bran be a good king? I don’t know. I certainly like the North’s chances under Queen Sansa a whole lot better. But I don’t think he’ll be an outright bad one. And after the Mad King Aerys, the drunk King Robert, the cruel King Joffery, the timid and easily manipulated King Tommen, the power-hungry Queen Cersei, and whatever adjective best describes Queen Daenerys’ short-lived but fiery reign, maybe a “good enough” king is good enough for Westeros.

Besides, Bran does have one thing going for him: his Master of Coin, the finally rewarded Ser Bronn of the Blackwater, Lord of Highgarden and Lord Paramount of the Reach. It only took eight seasons, but I have to hand it to Tyrion: a Lannister does (eventually) pay his debts. Good on Bronn!

Tasha: And I’ll add: good on Brienne, still my favorite character, who survived without being killed off for cheap pathos, and survived her annoying weepy episode over Jaime, and who takes the time to memorialize him properly. I found the scene where she writes out his deeds in the big book of Kingsguard Knights pretty touching. She saw that he got his proper legacy. She honored him in an honorable way.

So what are your low points from the episode? I was so pleased with the stately tone and beautiful visuals, and with the amount of time we spent with the weight of Jon’s decision, and his conversation with Tyrion about it, that it took me hugely by surprise when we get the big, awkward time-jump. We have no idea why Jon and Tyrion aren’t dead. Grey Worm made it clear just a little earlier in the episode that he doesn't take prisoners — and these two conspired to murder his beloved queen. We don’t know where the Dothraki went, or why they similarly didn’t run amuck. There’s just a sort of, “Well, weeks have passed, and here we are” statement. Given how rarely Game of Thrones’ last few seasons have even acknowledged the passage of time, I guess good on them for getting “weeks” into the dialogue so we knew, but… a lot of really important things happened during those weeks, and the show ignoring them is much more typical of the way this season went.

And what are we meant to do with the episode’s goofy humor, around Tyrion arranging chairs around the Small Council table, and Davos and Bronn and Brienne bantering about brothels? Yes, we needed a “life goes on” moment, and a sense for the new normal, but nothing about the gags here really landed for me.

Chaim: The time-jumps were also weird — did winter pass so quickly? I know Westerosi weather is weird, but the impression I had was that they were facing a pretty long and pretty bad winter as part of the natural weather cycles. But I guess not, given how nice and sunny things were in King’s Landing at the end. I guess it was all fine. And given the recent season’s tendency to compress travel times, and the fact that our only real indication of how long its been was Jon and Tyrion — who already looked pretty scraggly before the time-jump — it was honestly hard for me to get any idea of how that gap really was.

But the biggest issue for me was Arya. Don’t get me wrong, her setting sail on a new adventure was a fine ending. But the rest of the episode just underscored how underutilized she’s been since killing the Night King. As she says herself, she came to King’s Landing to kill Cersei, got there too late, and then… just kind of hangs around for the rest of the episode. There’s no Faceless Man magic, or attempts to assassinate Dany, or to free Jon from his prison. It just felt like the showrunners had no idea what to do with her.

Finally, there’s a small part of me that’s a bit bitter that Sam got a finished copy of A Song of Ice and Fire, whereas I still have to wait for the however many years it will take George R.R. Martin to finish his version. But I can’t really blame the show for that.

Tasha: It’s fine. The finished version of the book on the show doesn’t even include Tyrion, arguably the show’s most valuable and humanistic character. How good could it possibly be?

I’m fine with Arya’s arc essentially ending when she killed the Night King — it would have been too over-the-top, too traditional-fantasy, too only-one-hero-in-this-story to have her get Cersei or Daenerys as well. And I’m glad to see her setting out on her own adventures, though it’s weird that she never really uses Faceless Man magic again after doffing her Walder Frey suit. Maybe there’s room for her in one of the upcoming spin-off series. Unlikely, since they’re reportedly all prequels, with no familiar characters in them. But hey, when you’re dealing with a girl who’s no one, who can look like anyone, you can always pretend she’s the secret protagonist of any story.

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https://www.theverge.com/2019/5/20/18632137/game-of-thrones-got-season-8-hbo-final-best-worst-moments-recap-tyrion-jon-snow-daenerys-king-bran

2019-05-20 07:33:37Z
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Game of Thrones’ series finale left some plastic water bottles onscreen - The Verge

First it was a coffee cup, now it’s a bottle of water. Poor Game of Thrones just can’t catch a break.

Just a couple of weeks after some eagle-eyed fans discovered a forgotten coffee cup in a Game of Thrones scene, a couple of misplaced water bottles have appeared. The bottles, seen in screenshots below, pop up a few times over the course of several minutes. The first time is at 46:19 on HBO Now, and then a few minutes later. One is tucked just behind Samwell Tarly’s foot in the photo below.

Another water bottle can be seen just behind Ser Davos’ chair, in-between him and Gendry.

It’s understandable that long, strenuous meetings about the future of Westeros would leave anyone a little parched, but people clearly forgot to throw the bottles off camera once the director yelled “action!” Although it’s not as glaring as the abandoned coffee cup, one would imagine Game of Thrones’ editing team going through the finale with a fine comb. Game of Thrones is the most scrutinized show on television. Its fans are known for finding these things, and they’re already on to this goof.

HBO responded to criticism the last time this happened by joking along. “The latte that appeared in the episode was a mistake,” a statement from HBO read. “Daenerys had ordered an herbal tea.” The company also went in to digitally remove the cup following dozens of articles and thousands of fans tweeting about it. Bernie Caulfield, an executive producer on Game of Thrones, remarked in an NPR interview that these things happen, adding “if that’s the worst thing they’re finding, then we’re in good shape.”

Ah, foreshadowing! Apparently the worst thing people could discover is Westeros’ most powerful lords and ladies not being entirely eco-friendly, and relying on bottles instead of tap water. Or, perhaps well water considering the time period? Don’t feel too bad, HBO — you’re not the only one who has forgotten about water bottles.

The Verge has reached out to HBO about whether the water bottles will also be removed.

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https://www.theverge.com/2019/5/20/18632198/game-of-thrones-season-8-finale-the-iron-throne-water-bottle-coffee-cup-sam-tarly

2019-05-20 06:28:58Z
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