Who Will Win The Game Of Thrones?

[nevets88]

The spoilers section at the end of this podcast goes through many scenarios for the ending.

Fighting In The War Room — » STORM OF SPOILERS: Season 8, Episode 4 – Swing and a Miss(andei)

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A GAME OF THRONES PODCAST With Joanna Robinson from Vanity Fair, Dave Gonzales of Thrillist.

 

[Warren Zevon]

Wow, that was some heavy duty carnage going on tonight.  

[Zeph]

Yeah, pretty cool episode. Certainly a nice twist by letting Daenerys snap. Not that it came out of nowhere, but at the time she had already won the throne. I wonder what will happen next week. Wish they had more than 80 minutes to solve what remains.

[Vinsk]

5 hours ago, Zeph said:

Yeah, pretty cool episode. Certainly a nice twist by letting Daenerys snap. Not that it came out of nowhere, but at the time she had already won the throne. I wonder what will happen next week. Wish they had more than 80 minutes to solve what remains.

Really? I thought it was a total mess. 

[Zeph]

35 minutes ago, Vinsk said:

Really? I thought it was a total mess. 

The logic has gone out the window long ago and I've accepted it. I just enjoyed the spectacle of KL being scorched.

In the show, I don't think Dany's snapping was particularly well justified. If we get the same ending in the books (if they are ever finished), it might be built up in a better way with more time and words available. A big problem with the last seasons is that it's been going too fast. Had this been something they built up for a few seasons, I'd have bought it more.

[Vinsk]

12 minutes ago, Zeph said:

The logic has gone out the window long ago and I've accepted it. I just enjoyed the spectacle of KL being scorched.

In the show, I don't think Dany's snapping was particularly well justified. If we get the same ending in the books (if they are ever finished), it might be built up in a better way with more time and words available. A big problem with the last seasons is that it's been going too fast. Had this been something they built up for a few seasons, I'd have bought it more.

Yeah I agree. I thought the build up of Jaime’s character and the entire redemption path was ruined in such a sham of a supposed death by rocks. He gave the ‘I’m evil’ speech to Brienne only to confirm he isn’t evil, just a love sick buffoon. 

And the too rapid turn of Dany to the Mad Queen? One day she’s the saint of freeing people from slavery and  violence to women then the next she’s torching women and children.

A lot of scenes of Arya....doing nothing.

Clegane battle? So The Mountain was basically a white walker? Zombie? Dumb.

So the big question: Now what?

[iacas]

Dany certainly snapped. Guess she doesn't mind ruling over rubble. The Iron Throne is probably melted down or broken to bits or something at this point.

So who died in this episode? Hound and Mountain. Euron. Varys. Qyburn. Jaime and Cersei. That about it?

[nevets88]

Golden Company commander died, but it's like, who cares? Dude, we hardly knew ye.

I have given the seasons ever since they went off book a lot of slack. The last two episodes were god awful. Can't say I'm surprised though, but I was hoping.

I did like that they gave such a worm's eye view of the destruction, it went on for a bit, yeah.

My guess for final episode, but it's obvious:

Spoiler

Arya kills Dany.

 

[phillyk]

25 minutes ago, nevets88 said:

 

  Reveal hidden contents

Arya kills Dany.

 

This was my guess as well given the last few minutes of last night's episode.  

58 minutes ago, Vinsk said:

And the too rapid turn of Dany to the Mad Queen? One day she’s the saint of freeing people from slavery and  violence to women then the next she’s torching women and children.

I felt the same way, but then I watched the after show bit where the directors talked about the episode and they slightly changed my mind.  Dany had been isolated since Missandei's death while also brooding over Jon's identity, her being more of a queen of fear than love, and no body in the seven kingdoms really caring for her.  She really had been getting more and more isolated once she entered the seven kingdoms.  Then add the fact that KL meant the almost end of her family, surrender was never an option she would have accepted from Cersei. She wanted blood, she had too much held inside.

I'm not a fan of her turning to mad Queen, but I guess it does set up for a few more battles in the finale.

[iacas]

I don't think it was all that quick, and at the same time, when someone "snaps," oftentimes it is a series of things that happen quickly. She was the "breaker of chains" but how long ago was that? Quite awhile.

So I didn't see her breaking bad as all that sudden, or at least out of the ordinary level of sudden.

[billchao]

2 hours ago, Zeph said:

In the show, I don't think Dany's snapping was particularly well justified. If we get the same ending in the books (if they are ever finished), it might be built up in a better way with more time and words available. A big problem with the last seasons is that it's been going too fast. Had this been something they built up for a few seasons, I'd have bought it more.

My problem with it isn't that it happened, but how they executed it on the show. Part of it was due to time constraints, but a lot of it felt forced.

Dany herself has always been capable of great violence. I believe this has always been the endgame of George R. R. Martin.

2 hours ago, Vinsk said:

Yeah I agree. I thought the build up of Jaime’s character and the entire redemption path was ruined in such a sham of a supposed death by rocks. He gave the ‘I’m evil’ speech to Brienne only to confirm he isn’t evil, just a love sick buffoon. 

I liked the way his story ended. Feel-good redemption arcs don't really fit with the source material. I like how they set it up so that everyone wanted Jamie to be good, then didn't deliver it.

2 hours ago, Vinsk said:

And the too rapid turn of Dany to the Mad Queen? One day she’s the saint of freeing people from slavery and  violence to women then the next she’s torching women and children.

She snapped. Again, she's always been capable of great violence. Her particular brand of justice is as self-serving as anybody else's in Westeros.

Plus these weren't people who wanted her, who loved her, who needed her, like the people of Slaver's Bay. To these people, she's a foreigner who brought a foreign army across the sea to conquer them. And she's a Targaryen.

2 hours ago, Vinsk said:

A lot of scenes of Arya....doing nothing.

The whole Arya arc is her finally realizing that life's worth living again. She spends the episode desperately trying to survive and save people along the way. Faceless Man Arya would have just gone to kill Cersei because her own life was worthless.

2 hours ago, Vinsk said:

Clegane battle? So The Mountain was basically a white walker? Zombie? Dumb.

It's discussed more in detail in the books, but yea basically Gregor Clegane was supposedly unkillable when they turned him into Robert Strong. He's some kind of undead.

2 hours ago, iacas said:

So who died in this episode? Hound and Mountain. Euron. Varys. Qyburn. Jaime and Cersei. That about it?

Thousands of people. Though we may not know their names, it does not make their lives any less important 😉

[nevets88]

I had the subtitles on and the civilian mom with the little girl, the show gave the mom a name. Nora. I agree that in a lot of movies and tv, civilians are just fodder to be easily forgotten. I liked that at least the show showed the terrible and awful carnage of innocents who really didn't have much to do with the war, just going about their business and they got Pompeii'd.

[iacas]

1 minute ago, nevets88 said:

I had the subtitles on and the civilian mom with the little girl, the show gave her a name. Nora. I agree that in a lot of movies and tv, civilians are just fodder to be ignored. I liked that at least the show showed the terrible and awful carnage of innocents who really didn't have much to do with the war, just going about their business and they got Pompeii'd.

I feel like that was a big part of the point - a big part of getting those who were rooting for Dany to root against her. Seen from her perspective maybe you don't see all the civilians. Maybe you just see a dragon breathing fire on people below, and they could be soldiers. Or whatever, but they're small dots on screen, not faces and individual screams and efforts and children and women.

[Vinsk]

10 minutes ago, billchao said:

I liked the way his story ended. Feel-good redemption arcs don't really fit with the source material. I like how they set it up so that everyone wanted Jamie to be good, then didn't deliver it.

Yes but I wasn’t looking for a ‘feel good’ ending. I was looking for Jaime to say ‘f*** it...I’m evil.’ Instead his whole character relinquished into being a sappy, incestuous love fool. 

[Zeph]

1 hour ago, phillyk said:

I'm not a fan of her turning to mad Queen, but I guess it does set up for a few more battles in the finale.

Looking back at the entire show, I think Dany doing what she did is a great turn of events and one I wouldn't expect from most movies, but I just didn't feel it the way things have been going in the show. I have a feeling this will work better in the books. Sure, she's got a lot of stuff going against her lately, but she's got a dragon and I don't know what her plan is now. If she snapped mentally without control of her actions, it's fine I guess. It's impossible to tell when such a thing can happen if the mind is exposed for it.

What I don't particularly like about it is how she ended up in this situation compared to where she was at the end of season 6. Boating across the sea with all her armies and three dragons, all was swell. Euron ex machinad her twice IIRC in a short timespan. Then a stupid trip north of the wall lost her one dragon. Euron with aimbot and Dany with eyes closed killed one dragon and her translator/hair dresser. Cersei not aiding in battle vs the NK was expected and despite Dany losing a big chunk of her army it didn't make any difference. Drogon guaranteed victory in KL. After she took out all the scorpions, she had pretty much won since there was no contest for Drogon.

2 hours ago, Vinsk said:

A lot of scenes of Arya....doing nothing.

Either fan service or, I'm afraid, setting up for Arya to kill Dany. For doing nothing, she had too much screentime, and the horse at the end probably means something.

[Warren Zevon]

    Honestly, I’m just glad after next week that it will be over.  It’s been an entertaining run, but after eight seasons and a lot of tedious reading it will be nice to have something different to talk about on Mondays.  

    I have little faith in GRRM ever finishing the books now.  

[nevets88]

 

[Vinsk]

1 hour ago, Zeph said:

Euron with aimbot and Dany with eyes closed killed one dragon and her translator/hair dresser.

LOL!