Obviously do not proceed if you haven’t watched. But if you have…
Congratulations to Raven Bran, fortified with many vitamins and minerals and now also a kingship.
It was very thoughtful of the rubble to crush Jaime and Cersei, yet leave their faces intact and very nicely preserved for Tyrion’s goodbye.
Dany never even got to SIT on that throne. Jon Snow: Cold as Ice. However, that was probably the best character vs. character payoff, other than Brienne being knighted. But it was Tyrion pulling the strings, which even he mostly acknowledged later. Jon always seemed like a bit of a wishy-washy hero to me in my limited exposure to him: Nice guy, happy to cede power, maybe not that swift when it comes to important decisions.
Everyone was so certain Dany would end up being pregnant, and that never materialized, I guess because this season leaned away from a lot of complexities. I remain totally disappointed that Cersei was away from any of the significant action and characters until her last breath (someday I hope the story of that decision is truthfully told, because otherwise it makes no sense).
I also didn’t get the ultimate purpose of the Arya/Gendry thing, or even entirely Brienne and Jamie. You could have excised both love scenes and nothing would be the weaker. Brienne had Jamie’s respect, which I’d wager mattered more to her than his wang anyway; did we need her weeping for him? And did we need to sexualize Arya at all? Sure, good for her that she took control of her own curiosity and DIDN’T swoon — I was relived at the end that she didn’t say she was skipping out on the North to go live with Gendry, But retroactively, knowing it led to nothing, it starts to feel a tad unnecessary and maybe even a bit creepy. Those actors have known each other since she was like 13 and he was 22; why put them through that for it to do so little for either of their characters?
I may have laughed when the dragon delivered the big metaphor of the show by smelting the Iron Throne his mother so coveted. I can’t completely sort out why Jon Snow didn’t get torched there; if the dragon didn’t miss the nuance that she was dead and that the throne was the symbol of her destruction, then he likely didn’t miss the fact that Jon is the one who knifed her. Unless the dragon secretly has the ULTIMATE grasp of nuance, and understood even before Jon that she’d been twisted and probably needed to die — I suppose being asked to burn an entire city down may have been a big clue — and even let him in to do it. What if the dragon is the smartest character in the show?!?
Kings Landing sure seemed to spruce up again quickly. Not that we know how much time passed, but Jon hadn’t grown THAT much facial hair.
In the vein of how Lord of the Rings this has felt, this finale had about as many superfluous endings as the Return of the King had.
Did they rebuild that winter wall already, or was that a different part of the wall?
So, Sansa gets her independent North, Jon is off to be celibate but gets his true love Ghost back, freaking BRAN gets to be king, Tyrion gets to eat, drink, and be merry, and Arya gets to go off and be an explorer. I’m surprised no one ever checked out what was west of Westeros before, but at least Maisie Williams has her spinoff pitch. Maybe she and Sophie can team up for The Winterfell Diaries. I’m also pretty sure HBO was thrilled to hear Peter Dinklage say, “Ask me again in ten years,” or whatever that was, because I reckon it’ll only be about two at most before they roll the dice on that time jump.
I have absolutely no concept of how full-circle or satisfying this was for people who’d invested in the whole series; as a Fugger Come Lately who only watched the last two, I was underwhelmed overall. The second episode seemed like the only good one, really? But as always I am dying to know your thoughts.
