HBO's adaptation of Game of Thrones - Thread 2. There are a lot of nerds.

https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/game-of-thrones-the-bells/#!

When the actress first learned Cersei would be one of many casualties of Dany’s mass destruction, Headey wasn’t completely thrilled. “I wanted her to have some big piece or fight with somebody,” she says. However, after discussing the scene with co-star–on-screen sibling Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, the actress warmed to the idea of Cersei dying in her brothers’ arms. “The more we talked about it, the more it seemed like the perfect end for her,” says Headey. “They came into the world together and now they leave together.” In fact, the actress explains, “It’s maybe the first time that Cersei has been at peace.”

a scene of drogon devouring party pack after party pack of fiery doritos locos tacos to land another Demolition Man-style cross-promotion

When the actress first learned Cersei would be one of many casualties of Dany’s mass destruction, Headey wasn’t completely thrilled.

one thing that seems to be coming out in the wake of this is that lots of the actors have been pretty annoyed with how their characters turn out (emilia clarke and conleth hill, esp, i think)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EA7UQOYskas

Ha, came here to post that!

LOL yeah I knew what that would be before I even clicked on it.

As for me, I've always viewed Dany as a potential despot, and expected her to do exactly what she's done. I never saw her method of conquering as particularly heroic, particularly once she torched the Tarlys (horrid as Sams dad was).

I cant see how theyre really going to resolve a lot in one more episode. I want to know whats going to happen with Sam, with Bran, with Sansa/Jon/Arya, with Brienne, to Winterfell, to Kings Landing, and oh btw maybe the rest of Westeros could stand to be shown for 5 mins for some reactions ? Or are we supposed to think people are taking tea in Highgarden utterly none the wiser that they almost died at the hands of a bunch of zombies?

and we're back to the donnie darko mad world reaction montage

As I said last time, urrgh nooooo.

Still waiting for a GoT battle scene that doesn't have Jon Snow staring helplessly into space for five minutes.

Yeah when a bunch of soldiers under Jon's command started slaughtering surrendering, unarmed men and he just sort of spent 30 seconds doing an "oh jeez" Fargo protagonist look or whatever I was kind of thinking maybe he could have stepped up a little bit more there

I found myself wondering how Nelson "Bighead" Bighetti might have handled the situation, it seemed in that kind of ballpark to me

The crossbows going from the deadliest thing in all of creation to being completely useless did feel jarring, reminded me of Dark Knight Rises where Bane completely batters Batman and then later on a recently-crippled Batman just beats Bane without really doing anything different because the script just required him to suck at that point

Also WWE 50/50 booking. Nobody ever gets over with that shit buddy

haven't seen S 8 yet only started S 7 but Arya is my hero

I can’t remember the last time so many people bothered to make a distinction between the thematic/narrative idea being good and the *execution* of that idea being bad (ie, the problem isn’t what happened it’s how we got here).

except for the moronic, childish “they betrayed my feminist icon khaleesi” dead enders.

Dany: I ask for so little. Just let me rule you and you can have everything that you want.
Just fear me, love me, do as I say and I will be your slave.

*world falls down*

#GameOfThrones

well shit.... pic.twitter.com/1BZizwdsIa

— Lord Gaspy of House Stark (@OnFireGaspy) May 13, 2019

my main takeaways were

1. cersei was silent for almost the whole episode. where the fuck are her plans, where are the tricks, where is anything to upset my expectations? why did they do nothing with one of the biggest characters in the whole saga?
2. implying that if john just got over the incest ickyness, he would magically heal the crazy woman's uncontrollable emotions is just terrible optics. No way they earned the character turn for daenerys.
3. it was impressive how danny learned some basic military tactics from episode to episode, and the lannisters lost all sense of aim. i guess she did that by sitting in a room by herself and having a big think, so fair do's to her for the self improvement i guess?
4. i don't give a shit about any of the characters any more? john is a moron, danny doesn't make any sense any more... i just dont see much to look forward to in the final episode?

a shame.

Maybe Missandei was giving her shitty military advice and left to her own devices Dany is competent.

One dropped thread that they could have closed in this episode: Tyrion and Jaime had a farewell scene where they talk about their history together, and Jaime AGAIN doesn't mention that Tyrion's first wife was for real and not a prostitute Jaime hired.

implying that if john just got over the incest ickyness

Is that all his reservation was, though? My takeaway was that Dany was his *queen* but he realised that was all it was, and he didnt actually lerv her. Not enough to justify the shit she was starting to brew up anyway.

**cue Meatloaf**

i generally have no idea how much time has passed in the show, from episode to episode and season to season, but how long has it been since he last saw ygritte? a few months? when jon and daenerys were smooching for the final time, i was thinking "wow, he really had much more chemistry with ygritte. how long has it been, maybe a couple months?", and maybe that's what jon snow was thinking too

like.. a year? years? it’s impossible to tell

Yep the chemistry between Jon/Dany was non existent. I just couldnt ship em.

Where's the Iron Throne itself? Underneath a mountain of Red Keep rubble? How she gonna sit on it?

xxxp this might be a little bit of an unfair comparison given that the actors are married irl (but I agree!)

https://screenrant.com/game-thrones-how-much-time-passed/

six to seven years according to this

XP it’s OK, there’s a much more stylish throne in Dragonstone.

Also extremely funny as everyone said that Euron hit Rhaegal in motion but about a million huge crossbows couldn’t bring down Drogon. Def some stormtrooper aiming going on there.

I mean one of the dragons was literally lame and straight out of another battle so I broadly buy that it would have easier to take down. Quite enjoyed how easily they destroyed those shitty crossbows this time round.

I don't really expect well rounded characterisation from GoT but Cersei was particularly badly served by the writers this season. I wanted to see her go full Hitler in the bunker. Not giving her a proper scene with Tyrion was perhaps a mistake as well.

But in general the whole horrors of war thing was so well done that I didn't care that much about the rest of it. Only Arya showed any heroism at all which I suppose was the point of having her break the revenge cycle.

She wasn't even in the episode but things are really not looking good for Sansa at this stage.

feel like she's as likely to end up on the throne as anyone

“I don’t think she decided ahead of time that she was going to do what she did,” Weiss says. “And then she sees the Red Keep, which is, to her, the home that her family built when they first came over to this country 300 years ago. It’s in that moment, on the walls of King’s Landing, when she’s looking at that symbol of everything that was taken from her, when she makes the decision to make this personal.”

these guys really are spectacularly dumb

I mean one of the dragons was literally lame and straight out of another battle so I broadly buy that it would have easier to take down.

She really wanted to make it personal. So instead of going after Cersei, the woman who had heard her so much, she decided to just fly around and kill people she didn't know for a few hours. Really personal, can't get more personal than that.

In last night’s episode, Dany made use of the sun, spitfire style, flying with it behind her so Euron couldn’t see the initial approach. And then she kept moving, making the dragon a much harder target. The other dragon attack was unexpected and, I think, hit with the first bolt (though how she failed to spot the iron fleet from the air is still beyond me).

The other *attack on the dragon* was unexpected, I mean.

“I don’t think she decided ahead of time that she was going to do what she did,” Weiss says. “And then she sees the Red Keep, which is, to her, the home that her family built when they first came over to this country 300 years ago. It’s in that moment, on the walls of King’s Landing, when she’s looking at that symbol of everything that was taken from her, when she makes the decision to make this personal.”

this is bad enough in itself but the fact they actually had to stick in a 30-second close-up which she played as if they'd just told her the above as direction makes it somehow worse.

'she sees the home her family built and thinks - i am about to own that home - i will destroy it'

Yeah was wondering about the fate of the throne since the throneroom seemed to be in a right mess. THought she actually wanted to be on that throne, even if there is a substitute elsewhere. Thought the object had weight in itself fro several centuries of tradition etc.

The thing about the crossbow attack last week is that Dany just flew away and let Euron attack her fleet. Why didn't she just roast him then and there?

based on this ep she prob should have just flown the dragons to kings landing a few seasons ago, didn't even need any troops really.

not least since they didn't even believe she had dragons.

The troops definitely shredded through a lot of KL soldiers. I think the dragons were more for the killing of innocent civilians.

implying that if john just got over the incest ickyness, he would magically heal the crazy woman's uncontrollable emotions is just terrible optics. No way they earned the character turn for daenerys.

I had the same takeaway as you, seemed like a really misconceived scene. The writers even highlighted it in their behind-the-scenes explanation, so it seems they meant it to be the real turning point for her, rather than dying dragons or dying personal assistants

I thought people were saying that they should allow the troops to rest up a while after the big battle at Winterfell to make sure they were in shape to fight in the South. & Dany was pressing for immediate movement which appears to have cost her a dragon that wasn't in great shape and could have done with a chance to repair.

the whole rage attack thing might have worked better if they'd had the dragon killed in the same episode

There was time for word to get back to Winterfell about it dying so yeah, might have been more explanatory if the action had been more sequential. Or that is to say much closer together.

I was just going to say what Stevo said about the dragons being knackered. Sansa specifically said to her that her troops and her dragons were exhausted and no use for fighting, and she should wait two weeks, and because it was Sansa who said it to her, she decided she would go immediately. When Raegal went down, our first reaction was, "You should've listened to Sansa, but oh no. What would she know about battles?"

rip euron greatest character of all time, dying by the sea smiling about how great you are was very fitting, who can say this show doesn't give the fans what they want?

it's a pity he was Lord Flasheart

Lol show Euron is essentially just Victorion which is fine in its own way, but I wanted the unholy black magic pirate king, not the second tier alt right Youtuber.