Game Of Thrones: Final Season --SPOILERS!

[Vendetta]

Whether or not Arya had previously interacted with the White Walkers has no bearing on whether it is believeable for her to kill him. That would be conflating realism with traditional narrative convention, which are two different things.

Its in character for her to do so, and consistent with her established abilities. It might feel like a bait and switch after the Prince Who Was Promised build up around Jon and Danny, but I'd even argue its somewhat thematically consistent with a show that has repeatedly made a point of showing that being a skilled warrior and being a good leader aren't necessarily the same thing.

However, it does nothing for anyone's arc as a character. It doesn't proceed from anything Arya has done as a person, or the reasons she has done anything. It doesn't advance anyone in the scene as a person, it was there because it was badass.

It was exactly the fan pandering you go on to complain about.

And yes, it's about narrative convention, because as much as people often say A Song of Ice and Fire defies such convention it doesn't. It is absolutely driven by who its characters are as people and why they do things is intimiately related to what eventually happens. (PS that is why it was popular).

If GRRM ever gets this far with the books, I think we can cast iron guarantee that Arya will not be there because nothing about who she is as a person would lead her to that conflict or outcome.

[The Romulan Republic]

At the least, it meant that there was a larger point to Arya's spending several seasons learning to become an assassin before her realization that she was still a Stark.

Edit: And I'll just reiterate that "narrative convention" and "realism" are not necessarily the same thing. An action could be realistic for a character while still defying traditional narrative convention.

That said, I'd have been fine with it being Jon or Danny who took out the Night King. I just don't think its some show-ruining moment that Arya did it. There have been much worse mistakes.

[Vendetta]

At the least, it meant that there was a larger point to Arya's spending several seasons learning to become an assassin before her realization that she was still a Stark.

Edit: And I'll just reiterate that "narrative convention" and "realism" are not necessarily the same thing. An action could be realistic for a character while still defying traditional narrative convention.

Of course there was a larger point to Arya learning to become an assassin. Because she's on a dark and destructive path of revenge against those who have wronged her and her family. She's got a list of names that she's going to cross out every damn one, the unpleasant way. And in the books to date that's what she's doing. It's not a nice place, it's not a "badass" thing to do, it's vicious and murderous because that's the outcome of Arya's arc in the books.

Also I wasn't talking about realism, realism is much less satisfying than naturalistic character arcs.

Arya killing the Night's King in the show is mechanically realistic in that she has shown the training and skills to do it, but narratively unsatisfying because there's no reason for Arya's character arc to bring her to that point.

And the second is much more important than the former.

[TheFeniX]

On the other hand, Dany, even with her advisers, has made serious mistakes as a ruler. As someone pointed out to her a few seasons ago, Dany is not a leader, she's a conqueror. Conquerors are VERY good at defeating the enemy. Dealing with the aftermath and rebuilding? Not so much, as we saw with Yunkai and Meereen. On the plus side, she does care about the people, she just has a bit of that mad conqueror in her at times in how to solve their problems.

A lot of the "mistakes" Danny has made are portrayed IMO rather realistically. She's given into from advisors, says "Fuck that," and does something else. Sometimes the advice she is given is terrible, and she does it based on trust or not having better options. That's one thing.

But her, and other character like Stannis, who get consistently bombared with bad RNG while the "enemies" roll 6s all day: that's bad enough. But, at some point, their inability to even plan for said bad RNG, as it consistently clubs them over the head, means they are too dumb to live.

I'm tired of hearing how clever, both from the writers and fans, Cersei and Euron are. They are literally doing "what I would expect them to do." But they exist in a world where, tactically, everyone is Idiocracy levels of facinated by the most basic shit.

And no one even comments on how fucking RANDOM and LUCKY this shit is. As with Euron slamming his ship into the ONE ship (at night) containing VIPs should have everyone regarding him as a fucking LEGEND, IN universe. And what pisses me off is Euron is SUCH a HUUUUUGE plot mover, but his character is trotted out like a Plot Coupon. He exists near solely do DO THINGS and LOOK CRAZY. We honestly know dick all about his character since the camera doesn't think he's worth following without Cersei around or him moving the plot along. For what he does, he definately should be "Main Character" tier. But he's treated like a Special Guest Star.

Even the scene that halfway gave him some development, with Yara, existed solely to rescue Yara and give us more time with characters the writer's show are "worth" following. A shot of him on his boat or something just talking to some random sailor about ANYTHING would do wonders to bring him and the show around for me. They've got enough audience pandering dialog, give him 3 minutes?

On the topic of his MAGIC: There's this part in Rome were Antony is enraged Caesar won't punish Lucius and Titus for letting Pompey go. Understandably. But Caesar points out that their fools errand to recover his standard NOT ONLY recovered it but also rescued Caesar's Nephew (who would become another Caesar) and it's obvious they are favored by the Gods, and he isn't going to fuck with that.

Among both enemies and friends, their exploits elevate them and there are times their names alone get people to fuck off. But I can't recall a SINGLE scene where anyone in the Jon/Danny circle is like "Euron is a massive threat, have you SEEN the bullshit this guy pulls?" Same thing with Ramsey. You just got random "he's an evil bastard" lines, but leaving out "yea, but he's currently skull fucking us because he's a goddamn wizard."

Maybe I'm dumb, but when people don't comment about the near-MAGICAL brilliance of their opponents, it makes me worry they are not long for this world. Just don't go Steven Seagal levels of info dump masturbation.

[Coop D'etat]

Whether or not Arya had previously interacted with the White Walkers has no bearing on whether it is believeable for her to kill him. That would be conflating realism with traditional narrative convention, which are two different things.

Its in character for her to do so, and consistent with her established abilities. It might feel like a bait and switch after the Prince Who Was Promised build up around Jon and Danny, but I'd even argue its somewhat thematically consistent with a show that has repeatedly made a point of showing that being a skilled warrior and being a good leader aren't necessarily the same thing.

However, it does nothing for anyone's arc as a character. It doesn't proceed from anything Arya has done as a person, or the reasons she has done anything. It doesn't advance anyone in the scene as a person, it was there because it was badass.


It was exactly the fan pandering you go on to complain about.

And yes, it's about narrative convention, because as much as people often say A Song of Ice and Fire defies such convention it doesn't. It is absolutely driven by who its characters are as people and why they do things is intimiately related to what eventually happens. (PS that is why it was popular).

If GRRM ever gets this far with the books, I think we can cast iron guarantee that Arya will not be there because nothing about who she is as a person would lead her to that conflict or outcome.

We can illustrate your point pretty well by contrasting it to Arya murdering the Freys. That was a logical progression of her arc. She's an increasingly skilled assassin who is motivated by the wrongs done to her family, the Freys are one of the Stark's principle betrayers and are the kind of 3rd tier bumblers that could be taken out en masse by somebody who knows what they are doing. It's probably not how the books will do it if they are ever written (DwD foreshadows the Brotherhood and the Blackfish teaming up to slaughter the Frey's at a wedding), but it makes sense.


Meanwhile, for episode 4, something that would have worked to the same result would have been to have a straight up naval battle between the Iron Fleet and Dany's fleet. They are due for a reckoning from previous fights and their is good strategic reasons on both sides to seek battle. Dany is overconfident that her dragons make her invincible and uses them to burninate the Iron Fleet, but they're more dangerous than expected with naval ballistae and take down Rhaegal, who is vulnerable from unhealed injuries from the previous battle. Iron Fleet withdrawals after being mangled, achieving Euron's true purpose of taking down a dragon. Dany wins a Pyrrhic victory. She advances on KL, but due to reckless impatience and failing to take the time to rest and recover before making her main effort, demonstrating how her frustration is making her ineffective and as a result, her followers are beginning to doubt her leadership. Outsider her camp, losing a dragon to enemy action is diminishing her aura of might and she has to contend with no longer looking as mighty and inevitable as she did before.

This takes you the same place they were intending on going, but it arrises naturally from the circumstances, rather than being straight up contrived.

[Nari]

It's so laughable. Euron is like "damn, she broke off." Then immediately looks at the fleet with LoS but NO ONE noticed or was seemingly even assigned to LOOK for enemy ships. Jesus, fucking ANYTHING like a scout ship spots them, and Danny goes to investigate, and BOOM. Yea, it would STILL be stupid, but it would put the onus JUST on her. AS it stands, she's just enjoying her CGI ride and won't look left. And, IIRC, the FoV of the ambush area from Euron's perspective means the ships had to be visible for some time to everyone in Danny's fleet, even though the original camera pan made it look like they were just coming into view.

Which also hilariously means the first volley is what hit. No adjustment or anything.
...
Hitting clay birds flying perpendicular to you (shooting Skeet) with a shotgun is not easy. And that's at ~60 yards with a "bullet" that has spread. Not 1 mile with a crossbow. You could train for years and go your whole life never scoring a single hit like what happened in that episode, much less 3.

Right. Not only do they appear to have something like a Mark 1A Fire Control Computer and Mark 8 Rangekeeper (from the Iowa BBs), but I started doodling some estimates of the velocity those ballistae would have to have been fired with given very conservative range assumptions. Turns out they've solved how to accelerate them at something approaching the speed of a modern cannon. With no apparent recoil.

Which is all very impressive. I guess the CGI budget didn't cover a battle between the fleet and the dragons, with one of the dragons ending up getting caught in a rain of ballistae while too close to the ship. That would have been a good watch.

I'm happy someone seems to think that they can write drama, since they're now getting a Star Wars Trilogy. Although, hard to top TLJ.

[ray245]

It's so laughable. Euron is like "damn, she broke off." Then immediately looks at the fleet with LoS but NO ONE noticed or was seemingly even assigned to LOOK for enemy ships. Jesus, fucking ANYTHING like a scout ship spots them, and Danny goes to investigate, and BOOM. Yea, it would STILL be stupid, but it would put the onus JUST on her. AS it stands, she's just enjoying her CGI ride and won't look left. And, IIRC, the FoV of the ambush area from Euron's perspective means the ships had to be visible for some time to everyone in Danny's fleet, even though the original camera pan made it look like they were just coming into view.

Which also hilariously means the first volley is what hit. No adjustment or anything.
...
Hitting clay birds flying perpendicular to you (shooting Skeet) with a shotgun is not easy. And that's at ~60 yards with a "bullet" that has spread. Not 1 mile with a crossbow. You could train for years and go your whole life never scoring a single hit like what happened in that episode, much less 3.

Right. Not only do they appear to have something like a Mark 1A Fire Control Computer and Mark 8 Rangekeeper (from the Iowa BBs), but I started doodling some estimates of the velocity those ballistae would have to have been fired with given very conservative range assumptions. Turns out they've solved how to accelerate them at something approaching the speed of a modern cannon. With no apparent recoil.

Which is all very impressive. I guess the CGI budget didn't cover a battle between the fleet and the dragons, with one of the dragons ending up getting caught in a rain of ballistae while too close to the ship. That would have been a good watch.

I'm happy someone seems to think that they can write drama, since they're now getting a Star Wars Trilogy. Although, hard to top TLJ.

Their idea of drama is essentially give the "bad guys" as much magical bonus and buffs as possible, because it will create "tension" for the fans. Despite their constant talk about how bad decisions have consequences, this only applies to the "good guys".

[PREDATOR490]

No matter what way you cut that scene. It is stupid.

Three shots were fired rapidly with pinpoint accuracy against a moving target at extreme range. It is extremely unlikely that a single shot could have pulled that off let alone three.
Further, how the hell did they get those three shots off ?

The rapid fire would make it look like 3 of those ships fired with that level of accuracy. The counter point to this - They had more than 3 ships and it would have made sense to fire everything you had at both dragons. Given the accuracy they would have killed both Dragons and taken Dany out as well.
Outside of plot armor, the first target should have been Dany and her dragon for that surprise shot.

Incidentally, I find it kinda silly that anyone thought rushing to Dragon Stone without any support from the forces marching from Winterfell was a good idea.
Would it not have been easier and more consistent to synchronise the fleet and land forces so they can converge on a rally point ?

Dany and Co. sitting with a smallish force at Dragon stone waiting for the army to catch up seems like a really silly move even without the magic ambush. Forgetting about the the fact your enemy has an entire fleet of ships floating around and Dragonstone is close enough to Kings Landing that they would be foolish not to have forces there, is completely stupid beyond belief.

I find a much better story would have be to have Ceseri take Dragonstone out of spite against Dany. Dany charges off with her Dragons and a fleet to take it back for the symbolism, promptly getting ass kicked by an ambush waiting with weapons to take out the Dragons.

[The Romulan Republic]

I think you just have to handwave Euron has having the Drowned God's favor, at this point. He can do that shit for the same reason Melisandra could light an army's swords and trenches on fire.

[Vendetta]

A lot of the "mistakes" Danny has made are portrayed IMO rather realistically. She's given into from advisors, says "Fuck that," and does something else. Sometimes the advice she is given is terrible, and she does it based on trust or not having better options. That's one thing.

The advice Dany is given is quite often verging on always terrible. Or at least revealed to be so in the opinion of the show because the usual pattern is:

Dany wants to do something violent and extreme.
Her advisors talk her down to something more "reasonable".
It all goes wrong.
She does the violent and extreme thing and it works.

Tyrion's ideas usually backfire at Dany's expense. Burning some fools to the ground has a consistently high success rate.


(This also undermines any claim the show makes about Dany "becoming a villain", because it's relatively consistent across Dany and Cersei that being vicious, callous, ruthless, and extreme puts you in power and doing silly things like fighting armies of undead for the good of everyone just weakens you)

[The Romulan Republic]

A lot of the "mistakes" Danny has made are portrayed IMO rather realistically. She's given into from advisors, says "Fuck that," and does something else. Sometimes the advice she is given is terrible, and she does it based on trust or not having better options. That's one thing.

The advice Dany is given is quite often verging on always terrible. Or at least revealed to be so in the opinion of the show because the usual pattern is:

Dany wants to do something violent and extreme.
Her advisors talk her down to something more "reasonable".
It all goes wrong.
She does the violent and extreme thing and it works.

Tyrion's ideas usually backfire at Dany's expense. Burning some fools to the ground has a consistently high success rate.


(This also undermines any claim the show makes about Dany "becoming a villain", because it's relatively consistent across Dany and Cersei that being vicious, callous, ruthless, and extreme puts you in power and doing silly things like fighting armies of undead for the good of everyone just weakens you)

Nah, Danny had to fight the Undead. Even from a purely selfish perspective, she can't rule Westeros if there's no Westeros.

Following Tyrion's advice and not burning Mereen to the ground worked out fine, too. But I do think the last season and a half have shown that while Tyrion is smart in certain fields, a brilliant military strategist he is not.

I would love it (though I don't expect it) if this all turned out to be a bait and switch and Danny storms King's Landing and WINS. Or if she turns out to be following some more subtle and clever plan and Varys gets executed after betraying her for nothing.

[wautd]

Regarding the "ambush" with the Iron Fleet, I never had the feeling they were ambused. I mean, Dany should have seen the squadron from miles away while flying on top of her dragons and I would assume she expected to quickly burn them to cinder like she did with the (much larger slaver) fleet. She simply did not expect those ships were loaded with accurate and long range SAM's.
That I could buy, but the fact that she tried to charge the ships head on, moments after her other dragon got shot down was downright stupid. She could still have tried flanking them, or get them from behind/top. That and the fact that the helpless survivors didn't get slaughtered/captured on the beach* while her tolk conveniently got captured by Euron was harder to believe as well.

(*I guess she still had a large garrison on Dragonstone?)

My least favorite scene was the one with Bronn though. It felt completely random and tacked on with the rest of the episode.

[wautd]

PS. can anyone remember me what happened with House Tyrell's huge army that joined Dany's forces? I mean, the forces that were destroyed during the sacking of Highgarden was just a garrison at best right? Theoretically, even without the Tarly's, House Tyrell still should have the largest army by far right (as it's one of the most powerful houses that never saw any major battles so pretty much unscathed. I can't believe they'd simply disbanded and fucked off after the queen of thorns died.

[Vendetta]

Following Tyrion's advice and not burning Mereen to the ground worked out fine, too. But I do think the last season and a half have shown that while Tyrion is smart in certain fields, a brilliant military strategist he is not.

Tyrion in Mereen attempts to politick and compromise and none of it works, landing Dany in an unmanageable quagmire of rebellion until Dany burns the fuck out of some fools.

She got command of the Dothraki by burning the fuck out of the Kahls, got command of the Unsullied by killing their masters because she couldn't afford to hire them. In Qarth she eventually has to burn the fuck out of the people trying to steal her dragons.

When Dany solves her problems with violence, it works. Consistently. She gets what she wants and comes out ahead.

When she tries to solve her problems by listening to Tyrion especially it all goes to shit. She loses Highgarden, loses her fleet to Euron, etc. all because she listens to Tyrion.

Logically, she should have just sailed straight to King's Landing as soon as possible whilst she still had three dragons and reduced the Red Keep and all within it to slag. By the established pattern of how things actually work for Dany, that would have been the effective thing to do.

Burn it to the ground, ask if anyone has any objections to calling her queen. Then fix the zombie problem. (Which she eventually has to do the Tarlys anyway.)

[NeoGoomba]

Everyone really needs to just heed Bronn's wisdom. Be as violent and ruthless as you can to ensure you rise to the top, then you can be compassionate and jolly to smooth out your reputation and rewrite the histories. Dany and Cersei understand the first part, and Dany seems to grasp the last part. Like Vendetta says, it is when Dany listens to the extremely overrated adviser Tyrion (he's clever, not a master political puppetmaster) that things all go to shit. At least Varys understands getting ones hands dirty is part of politics. And like Bronn says, it's how all the Great Houses came to be in Westeros, as (depressingly) violence is seemingly the only successful method of change.

I hope House Blackwater rules long from Highgarden.

[Imperial Overlord]

Back at the end of season six when HBO decided they were going to have an eighth season, the door was opened to all of this shit fuckery. Since the logical thing for Dany to do is crush Cersei like a gnat, not sweat the tiny percentage of the Seven Kingdom's population in King's Landing when there's massive suffering all over the place, and then deal with the undead problem. But that's one season worth of solution not two, so instead we get magic Euron, trusting Cersei and a host of other stupidities, worrying about civilian casualties in only one city in the Seven Kingdoms and not the effects of prolonged war on the population as a whole, and rigged dice being handed to Cersei whenever she needs to roll the bones. Magic Euron would be far more acceptable if show Euron was closer to book Euron, who might actually be magic. It turns Tyrion from a shrewd operator to a dithering fool because hey, we got to stretch out the plot for another season and that means the Mother of Dragons needs to be getting really shitty advice.

Dany really isn't that close to Stannis. Both of them have entitlement issues the size of moderately sized moon and brute force is their go problem solving issue with resistance, unless the plot needs Dany to dither around in Slaver's Bay instead of killing the fuck out of her enemies, but Dany can be persuaded and possesses a flexibility that Stannis doesn't possess. Stannis is the motherfucker who chops the finger joints off the guy who smuggles him food during a fucking siege.

[Nari]

I think you just have to handwave Euron has having the Drowned God's favor, at this point. He can do that shit for the same reason Melisandra could light an army's swords and trenches on fire.

Agreed. Although to be fair, Melisandre's buffs were far less useful. Especially as the defenders just sat there while the undead were temporarily blocked from access to the walls by the fire trenches. And the dragon Close Air Support didn't really get do much.

Had she killed the Ice Dragon, then we'd be talking!

[Coop D'etat]

PS. can anyone remember me what happened with House Tyrell's huge army that joined Dany's forces? I mean, the forces that were destroyed during the sacking of Highgarden was just a garrison at best right? Theoretically, even without the Tarly's, House Tyrell still should have the largest army by far right (as it's one of the most powerful houses that never saw any major battles so pretty much unscathed. I can't believe they'd simply disbanded and fucked off after the queen of thorns died.

Tyrells weren't as big a military force in the show as they are in the books (2nd banana to the Lannisters in numbers in the show). The Carly's lead an large defection to the Lannisters after they joined the Targaryens and what they had left got smooshed in front of Highgarden by the Tarly-Lannister army. They're out of the game and the remaining Reachmen seem to be in Cersei's fold.

Yes, this was all when the military moves started making zero sense when they ran out of books.

[TheFeniX]

The advice Dany is given is quite often verging on always terrible.

True, the broadstrokes are dumb, which I can get behind. I got no problem with how she might do something dumb because "the people might cry because some other people died" and "don't be like your father, blah blah" because they prey on her motivations, fears, etc. It's dumb, but it's understandable dumb. It's believable dumb.

But there's absolutely NO good reason Danny and all the other VIPs are the first to get within visual range of Dragonstone AT ALL. They've aren't even in a rush since they'll beat Jon to KL anyways. There's not a scene of:
"We should send in Scout Ships first, leave the dragons and the main fleet back."
"But... if people see I don't fly my dragons without fear, they might think I'm not my father and something about destiny! Euron won't be around even though he's always around and they never would have made more or improved the Dragon-killing Crossbows of DOOM! That would be unfair!"
"Well, we at least should send a scout team to Dragonstone first. It would be ABSOLUTELY MORONIC to continue to leave it unmanned or in usable condition."
"No, we walked in last time with no issues."
"Ok then, we just slam our dicks into Dragonstone."

Because that scene, in some variation, HAD to have happened unless everyone on Team Danny is too busy plotting who to put on the throne to even think about WINNING the actual war.

See, this shit is dumb. Worse than that, it's not believable, unless there is specifically 1 or more people who want them to lose. You don't send in your VIPs WITH the people checking a place for hostiles. And if you're walking into a warzone and don't expect every valuable target (Danny is ONCE AGAIN going to use Dragonstone as a base, so it has value if only in that) to be manned with enemies waiting to kill you. If you DID do that, you'd better explain why it happened rather than cut straight to "ZOMG, Melli is captured, time for another TENSE and EXCITING SCENE of PLOT MOVING FORWARD!"

OF NOTE: There's also no reason Cersei didn't ship a couple tons of that Green Goo into the Dragonstone basement and leave a few guys behind to blow the place once Danny struts in. Sure, it a suicide run, but she's not above: "Do this, or I'll torture your entire family to death" with some poor rando. This is the kind of shit Varys and Tyrion SHOULD be talking about since they know how ruthless Cersei is and what she possibly might have access to.

Regarding the "ambush" with the Iron Fleet, I never had the feeling they were ambused.

The whole thing was set and framed to ambush both Team Danny and the Audience. She literally couldn't be bothered to look left until her Dragon took 1-2 hits.

[PREDATOR490]

Does Cersei still have wildfire or was it all used up ?

If the way this series is going stays true to form - The 'unexpected' finale could be the Dragon setting off a chain reaction which completely vaporises King's Landing. As a bitter sweet ending it would be appropriate for the throne that everyone has been fighting for to be slagged to ruin.

Of course, if that happens... where is the new capital going to be. Dragon Stone or Winterfell ?

[Ziggy Stardust]

Something I didn't notice in the most recent episode until someone pointed it out to me: they got Gendry's flippin' name wrong! When he is legitimized, it is stated that his bastard name was Gendry Rivers. But that doesn't make sense! That's the bastard name for the Riverlands. Gendry would have to be a Waters (since he is a bastard from the Crownlands).

On its own, this really isn't a big deal. I just think it's incredibly emblematic of the sloppy writing and utter disdain for the source material that the showrunners seem to have developed the past couple of seasons.

[TheFeniX]

Does Cersei still have wildfire or was it all used up ?

NOTE: I'm not picking on you here, but you bring up a HUGE problem I have with the show:

It doesn't matter. The CHARACTERS don't know what the audience knows. It's a possible threat, like the Dragonkillers. It needs. to. be. talked about. And it would make for something else to pad the runtime with versus "SQUEE Briane's a KNIGHT NOW!" and "oh look, all the characters are waxing poetic about bullshit we already know about." Seriously, rather large parts of the first two episodes were basically clip shows, except just fucking DIALOG. It was nothing but Audience Gratification. And honestly about as poorly written as Bioware's "the woman/man you had enough conversations with professes love and is looking for sex before <BIG MISSION!>"

On wildfire: Tyrion had it manufactured and he used it to turn the tide of an almost guaranteed loss. Cersei used it to nuke... pretty much any of the "old hat" enemies she had/created. Like I said: this is like them ignoring MENTION of the words "Euron," "fleet of ships," "Dragonkillers," "Dragonstone might be occupied." But they are all looking at the endzone (Cersei, the Throne) and ignoring the Defensive Line because (IMO) that's what the writers are looking at.

In a show that used to analyze things from multiple angles, had multiple scenes of just... people shooting the shit about war, and what could happen, what did happen (look at all the scenes with Tywin in.... shit, that Keep: where Arya was the Cup Girl). Shit like that was what really SOLD this show to a lot of people. But now it's just "hey, remember that huge game changing plot device that could (and did) really fuck some shit up? Like, MAJOR PLOT implications multiple times? No? Ok."

It would be like, were they alive, accepting another wedding invitation from the Freys and not even mentioning what happened before, right as the archers ambush you.

This is a major gripe I have about a LOT of fiction in multiple genres. Like how X character has this ability they've used 10000 times to save the day and whatnot. And then it's like "oh shit, well..... I want this scene so.... they forgot about it." Because it just fucking reminds of this:

Shit works GREAT in comedy. In drama? Hell no.

[Nari]

Made me giggle

https://www.abacusnews.com/digital-life ... le/3008130

“When watching this episode, I feel like I can’t get immersed in the plots,” says one post on Q&A site Zhihu. “Because the commanding of the battle is too much of a failure.”

Yep

[Themightytom]

I'm still twitchy about the faceless men, Arya went out of her way to say "that's not me" with Gendry. She had that scene with Nymeria too. I'm not going to be surprised if she turns out to be a Chekov's gun.

Jon as a great leader of men is still not that credible in my mind. The wildlings hated him most of the time, Ygritte even tried to kill him. The nights watch hates him, they DID kill him (by the way he's still some kind of Zombie, and Danaerys might be as well since she keeps coming back from fire) and when Jon won back the North, the first thing he did was ride South and give up the North.

Now Sansa knows that he is not Ned Starks heir, so it's really just Brandon, or herself.

They also mentioned a new king of Dorne, and Danaerys left Daario behind, so either could be allies. Sam might take over house Tarly, if there's anything left of it. Rhaegal isn't dead in my mind until at least a full episode goes by without him, and Yara took the iron islands, so there's still a lot in play.

[The Romulan Republic]

Rhaegal will get raised as a water zombie by the Drowned God, and Euron will ride him into battle against Daenerys.