"Non book readers" - Season 8 Episode 5 "The bells" - Spoilers post 2 forward

Exclamation Marc

I really enjoyed it and I'll give it another viewing today as I usually do before I fully know how I feel but it was great.

With the amount of 'good guys' v 'bad guys' going into this episode, they needed a good story to even have a last episode.

I think people need to remember that time is an oddity in the show. Dany lost her closest aides and had been stewing about it for at least a week or two. She didn't just wake up the morning after and go all firestarter. She's fulfilled her fathers intentions now and next week promises to be a cracker.

That Golden Company eh? Value for money at its finest.

My only obvious complaint after viewing one was that when the two dragons were attached by scorpions, there were hundreds of arrows fired. In this I think I counted just one??

It's looking more like Sansa could be on the Iron Throne.

What an end for the Hound. Wonderful.

podgemonster

podgemonster wrote:

I actually think it was a very important moment. The path of vengeance is a dark road that eventual ends in Death. The Hound is motivated only by hate, he was going into the red keep to kill his brother, his own life was after that point had nothing left to live for.

Absolutely. Subtle nuances that are overlooked because it's not how they would have written it.

Deleted User wrote:

As a protest at the pile of sh1te they made of it..

I'm sure they'll be devastated. Enjoy your protest. I'll enjoy the finale of a series I enjoyed immensely.

RollieFingers

Best episode of the series so far. Apart from Cleganebowl, that was awful, and the way they have ruined Tyrion's character.

Paddy Cow

Exclamation Marc wrote: »

I really enjoyed it and I'll give it another viewing today as I usually do before I fully know how I feel but it was great.

With the amount of 'good guys' v 'bad guys' going into this episode, they needed a good story to even have a last episode.

I think people need to remember that time is an oddity in the show. Dany lost her closest aides and had been stewing about it for at least a week or two. She didn't just wake up the morning after and go all firestarter. She's fulfilled her fathers intentions now and next week promises to be a cracker.

That Golden Company eh? Value for money at its finest.

My only obvious complaint after viewing one was that when the two dragons were attached by scorpions, there were hundreds of arrows fired. In this I think I counted just one??

It's looking more like Sansa could be on the Iron Throne.

What an end for the Hound. Wonderful.

Dany hates Sansa now. She'll be off to Winterfell to take care of her!

Exclamation Marc

RollieFingers wrote: »

Best episode of the series so far. Apart from Cleganebowl, that was awful, and the way they have ruined Tyrion's character.

I thought Cleganebowl was brilliant. The Mountain was more or less indestructible so it had to be some epic death and the Hound could only fight within his (albeit huge) abilities.

Another thing I thought about - Did Jamie say he never cared about the people to Tyrion, yet that was the whole reason he became the Kingslayer? Bit of a butchering there.

Exclamation Marc

Paddy Cow wrote: »

Dany hates Sansa now. She'll be off to Winterfell to take care of her!

Mmmm maybe! I think the 'happy ending' has Sansa on the throne though. Will the writers have gone for it?

fash

I must say I liked the Cersei end- not everything needs to be big: dead is dead.

Clareman

The 1 thing that I was expecting during the episode was for Cersai's past with wildfire to be brought up either as a "She has history of killing innocents why can't I?" or by having a self destruct mechanism to destroy everyone.

Beric Dondarrion

touts wrote: »

but if he can survive being skewered with a sword and then a dagger through the brain could he survive the fall?
.

The fall won't kill him, it's the sudden stop that will though!!:P

Enjoyed this episode probably the best of this season so far IMHO.

awec

fash wrote: »

I must say I liked the Cersei end- not everything needs to be big: dead is dead.

I agree not every death needs to be high-drama, edge of seat stuff, but Cersei has been the main antagonist for the whole 8 seasons of the show. I think the character deserved a less bland ending.

They made it out like it was a tragic event, when that didn't fit with the character.

J. Marston

A part of me wants to see her go to every corner of Westeros and lay waste.

Place needs a good cleansing fire.

IAMAMORON

I think Cersei's death was fitting of any tyrant's death. When you add in her walk of shame and the traumatic life around her as a result of her family, she was an understandable villain in my eyes.

Her mother - died at Tyrions birth
Her father - murdered by her brother
Her Husband - never loved her
Her eldest son - poisoned at his wedding, albeit everyone enjoyed that.
Her daughter - poisoned on her way home
Her other son - commited suicide.
Her Twin Brother - left her to fight her enemy after all she had been through with him.
TYrion Lannister - Even tried to save her life after all she had done to him.

So I think it is fair to say that her power came at the ultimate cost. Everyone suffered around her. But the walk of shame was in some ways a revenge even for the pay off which the viewer demanded. At the same time no one ever hated her for her incest, which she was shamed for.

Her biggest crime was her greed for power and to not facilitate justice where possible. It is unfortunate that the series could not have elaborated on the Valonquar prophecy further. Hopefully the books dig deeper here. However avid followers of the show will recognise that all it's prophecies parallel real world soothsaying , insofar as they arrive with a tainted angle.

Finally how did you want her to die ? Stabbed by mad Arya ? Stabbed by a deranged Jamie ? Beaten to death by Euron ? Arrested and executed in the Dragon Pits?

IMO it was classic GOT story snatch. It feels as shallow as the Red Wedding, all those arcs slashed to death in one more plot twist. As a viewer you are deprived deliberately of that final pay off, now how do you feel to have lost everything ?

expectationlost

touts wrote: »

The letter Varys was writing at the start was interesting. I wonder who that went to. Then he was writing another when he was arrested a few days later so he clearly was sending more than one. I wonder was he writing to the surviving Lords of the Realm and the Grand Maester etc to spread the word about Jon being the true heir. Given his service under so many Kings over the years he might be one of the few that the realm would believe if he told them about Jon.

was the not one letter varys didn't get time to finish?

SureYWouldntYa

Was the favour Tyrion asked of Davos not the boat for Jaime and Cersei? I could be wrong but thats how i interpreted it

meeeeh

SureYWouldntYa wrote: »

Was the favour Tyrion asked of Davos not the boat for Jaime and Cersei? I could be wrong but thats how i interpreted it

Yes.

And I thought the letter Varys was writing at the begining was different to the letter he burned. I don't think he would leave a half ended treasonous letter lying around especially after the girl told him she was being watched.

OptimusTractor

What purpose does Sir Dav-I'm-not-going-to-like-this-os still serve?

Effects

SureYWouldntYa wrote: »

Was the favour Tyrion asked of Davos not the boat for Jaime and Cersei? I could be wrong but thats how i interpreted it

Yeah, but originally I thought the favour was also going to include getting Jamie there in the boat. Which would have made sense, but maybe harder to pull off.

Effects

OptimusTractor wrote: »

What purpose does Sir Dav-I'm-going-to-like-this-os still serve?

Jon's right hand man.

PIORUN

johnny_ultimate wrote: »

Hard not to have 'opinions' about that episode.

It's arguably the best made - in a technical and spectacle sense - episode of the series. The way it transitions from the ominous, shadowy build-up of the opening 15 minutes to the brutal chaos that follows is satisfying. The action feels like a riposte to the Battle of Winterfell - no tactical darkness to hide the violence and death. Miguel Sapochnik is one of the show's best directors, and he brings his a-game here.

In the moment, the episode is largely enjoyable, a few raised eyebrows aside. But like much of this season so far, as soon as I started to digest it a bit that sheen wore off. The major problem I have is that I really just don't give a **** about any of the characters at this stage. I feel the writers are forcing them to make weird decisions just to set up certain scenes or payoffs, regardless of whether it makes any sense or not. Jamie's perhaps the foremost example: I simply do not think the show remotely sold his decision to go back Cersei, and that whole business rang hollow as a result. I can see how it makes sense on paper, but the writers have rushed through necessary development to get him and Cersei back together. Feel they've been just buying time when it comes to Tyrion as well all season - without question he'll have some key role in the finale (Davos' favour) but they've relegated him to bumbling witness for too long here.

But what of the big character shift, the arrival of the Mad Queen? There's no doubt that's been bubbling as a possibility since very early on in the series, and a few inciting incidents in the last few to push her over the edge. Why does it still ring a bit false? Again there's just an inconsistency in the writing: from scene to scene in the last couple of episodes you simply don't know if Dany will be an empathetic, decent leader or psychopath-in-waiting. The path towards this destination had been paved for sure, but it comes across as unstable and clumsy in the execution. Ditto how those spiked arrows were such a devastating, insurmountable threat last week and destroyed with barely a sweat broken this week. The show's internal rules come across as made up as they go along.

As a piece of action television, there's plenty to like here - the sheer horrid scale of the thing, and the sense of chaos as Jon futilely yelled at his troops to stop. It was at its weakest, though, when it tried to be a last generation action video game. The Arya sequences were the worst offenders - while an admirable attempt to give the audience a POV of the grim scenes on the ground, her constant stumbling from one explosion or collapsing building to another gave the impression of a bad action sequence from an Uncharted game. It really felt like they forced a fan-favourite character into that situation so she'd have something to do this episode. And the show's worst habit this season has been to treat every character death as a big, dramatic showcase or event: every major death here is an emotionally-loaded reunion or long-anticipated confrontation, and that traps GoT in the sort of generic blockbuster storytelling mould that the show at its brutal best avoided.

There's a sense this episode works in the moment because of the efforts of many of the creative players: whether that's Sapochnik's visceral direction, or largely accomplished work from almost all the major cast members. The fall of King's Landing was, crucially, as catastrophic as one could have imagined. In that sense, the episode was a success. But I'm basically tuned out of the broader narrative at this stage: I don't really care about anyone's fate, or whether the impossibly bland Jon Snow and the 'good guys' triumph over the genocidal queen. Game of Thrones is something I enjoy watching on a Monday morning, but even as events barrel forward it leaves surprisingly little impression once those credits have rolled.

Davos favour was to assist in smuggling Jaime and Cersei out no?

OptimusTractor

meeeeh wrote: »

Yes.

And I thought the letter Varys was writing at the begining was different to the letter he burned. I don't think he would leave a half ended treasonous letter lying around especially after the girl told him she was being watched.

The 1st letter was long gone by that time. I think the burning was a false trail.

homerun_homer

meeeeh wrote: »

Yes.

And I thought the letter Varys was writing at the begining was different to the letter he burned. I don't think he would leave a half ended treasonous letter lying around especially after the girl told him she was being watched.

Where did this kid come from? They are on Dragonstone! When they arrived it was initially Dany and her troops, then with Jon and his men, and suddenly we're to be ok with Varys having his little birds around?

markodaly

homerun_homer wrote: »

I literally have lost all interest in seeing the finale. All excitement is gone. This is why we can't have nice things.

Christ, it's only a TV show at the end of the day.

meeeeh

homerun_homer wrote: »

Where did this kid come from? They are on Dragonstone! When they arrived it was initially Dany and her troops, then with Jon and his men, and suddenly we're to be ok with Varys having his little birds around?

She was one of the servants. I don't think it's impossible to imagine they got a few locals to work there. After all Stannis had to rule over someone in Dragonstone and neighbourhood, so I presume those locals were still there. Castles tend to be close to villages, towns or cities.

Halfway through it and I'm bored. Not sure what's happened but I don't really care.

Effects

Deleted User wrote: »

Halfway through it and I'm bored. Not sure what's happened but I don't really care.

Probably not the best show for you so. Try the Walking Dead maybe?

Penn

Effects wrote: »

Probably not the best show for you so. Try the Walking Dead maybe?

Jesus... people can be critical of a few episodes of a show 70+ episodes into it where there has been quite a noticeable tonal shift in without having to be told to go watch something else

Sandor Clegane

Has anything ever been said about the fact Danny can't have kids? I mean what was her plan, did she ever have one? win the throne and then what? after her rule the Targaryen's would be gone again, she had no way of sustaining or building another Targaryen dynasty...

nix

mrkiscool2 wrote: »

Ironically, this proves my point for me. Like, the best way to ban slavery is....to kill people who don't want to ban slavery?

No to kill people who want to enslave people would be the best way, making it punishable by death is a good way to deter future slavers.

mrkiscool2 wrote: »

It doesn't matter whether they can be decent people or not, she has them killed, with the exception of the master she wants to marry to keep power (see how she will accept people if it means her power is actually kept in tact? Weird, almost like she doesn't actually want to break the wheel, but just alter it to fit her!)

You say power i say peace, it was a good move to try ensure peace in the city while she continued further on across the sea. And she didnt kill them all, she gathered them all up and put them in front of her dragons to put the ****s in them, only one of them died there, the rest went free.

Then the three that were still opposing her at the end, she killed the worse one and let the other two live, even after the further mayhem they caused, they even had a hand in killing Barison, but she let them live

mrkiscool2 wrote: »

Again, both the books and show have shown, numerous times, Dany does have the bit of madness in her. It's something she has fought for a long time. Eventually, all the things crumble and so does her ability to fight it back when she has to. It is good writing, one of the rare bits in this season that has built on both the writing in the books and it's own writing.

You say madness, i say anger, all people have it, and to be honest she never acted upon it and most of the **** she done she decided herself, sure she kept council but at no point were they stopping her from committing genocide or anything of the sorts.

Look im all for the idea of her going mad, i just think if its something they wanted to do all along, they should have been edging towards it a lot sooner and maybe have her do some minor things that were out of character for a few seasons, as opposed to a few episodes.

leggo wrote: »

I’m sorry but you haven’t been paying attention if you don’t understand how Dany snapped, they’ve been setting it up the whole time (right back to her House of Undying vision in S2 which literally foreshadowed what was to come here).

You can feck off with your constant retconning ****e The vision back then was clearly to show what happens to Kings landing with the Night kings story arc, its clearly snow not ash and she exits the throne room through the Nights watch gate and into the north. If you want to pretend all along that was ash be my guest, but if it looks like snow, falls like snow and sounds like snow (footsteps), its snow :rolleyes::pac:

leggo

Penn wrote: »

Jesus... people can be critical of a few episodes of a show 70+ episodes into it where there has been quite a noticeable tonal shift in without having to be told to go watch something else

Imagine you were in a pub chatting about a TV show with others who watch it and there was a lad there who just kept shouting over the conversation, "I DON'T LIKE THIS SHOW ANYMORE!" That's how it feels sometimes this season. Nobody is arguing that people have to like it. A lot of the criticism is absolute muck that just shows the people criticising up for not understanding what they're seeing or saying (e.g. talking about lack of character development while bemoaning how a character is acting in a way they didn't before, which is literally what character development is. If a character acted how they had always acted, they wouldn't have developed), so people are going to get pulled up on it the same way they would if they argued that someone was a bad footballer because they didn't just pick the ball up and run into the goal. That doesn't take away their right to not like football or not be entertained by a particular match. It's just eventually someone is going to ask what they're doing partaking in a conversation about football.

The reality is when someone is at the stage of actively trying to poke holes and find the bad in something, they just don't like that thing anymore. Which is fine. But their only purpose in a conversation among people who still do like it then becomes to try force their opinion down people's throats, which is just an irritating way to act in general. So that's going to lead to people being like, "Just watch something you do like dude and let us chat about this without trying to ruin it." I didn't enjoy Dexter, it just never grabbed me. But I didn't spend every week in the Dexter discussion thread trying to find the bad in it. I watched something I did like instead and let people who did like Dexter enjoy the thing they liked, it's not rocket science.

touts

expectationlost wrote: »

was the not one letter varys didn't get time to finish?

Maybe. The erratic timescale between scenes makes it hard to know. At one stage Jon mentions it will be a couple of days before the northern armies arrive and then they are at the battle so I assumed the time must have passed. I interpreted that as another letter Varys was writing. I certainly don't think he would be foolish enough to leave a letter like that lying around when he knew they were on to him. Write them and send them as quickly as possible. I'd like to think that was the case otherwise who will believe Jon/Aegon is the rightful heir? If it turns out Varys sent letters out before he was killed it will be like his revenge from the grave which would be a nice twist.