"Non book readers" - Season 8 Episode 6 "The Iron Throne" - Spoilers post 2 forw

Tyrion: "Will you lead the Seven Kingdoms to the best of your abilities from this day until your last day?"
Bran: "Why do you think I came all this way?"

So the ultimate bad guy in the show was the Three-Eyed Raven. Knowing he would become king means knowing King's Landing was going to burn. He didn't warn anyone because he wanted the throne. He even sends the true heir to the Night's Watch so he can't be usurped.

is_that_so

valoren wrote: »

And for anyone who hasn't seen the show they'll now be less likely to invest time in watching 72 episodes given the lukewarm reaction to the final two seasons.

If the 6 seasons pull you along you'll probably try 7 although l'm not sure how many might sit through 8!

Mitch Connor

Deleted User wrote: »

Tyrion: "Will you lead the Seven Kingdoms to the best of your abilities from this day until your last day?"
Bran: "Why do you think I came all this way?"

So the ultimate bad guy in the show was the Three-Eyed Raven. Knowing he would become king means knowing King's Landing was going to burn. He didn't warn anyone because he wanted the throne.

He set it in motion, at least partly, by telling John of his claim to the throne knowing that John would never take it, but would tell the people that it would cause problems for.

And that is just breezed by, no one (in the show) noticed.

As soon as he said "Why do you think I came all this way?" - Tyrion should have known.

GSPfan

I’m actually fine with it ending the way it ended. Lots of problems with how they did it and why they did it but it was the ending they set up so I guess they achieved it.

This isn’t a book spoiler cause I’ve only audiobooked the first few books but Bran is much more fleshed out I believe in the books so maybe tv version missed the mark a bit and that’s why it seems from my perspective that people are a bit underwhelmed by it all.

is_that_so

Mitch Connor wrote: »

He set it in motion, at least partly, by telling John of his claim to the throne knowing that John would never take it, but would tell the people that it would cause problems for.

And that is just breezed by, no one (in the show) noticed.

As soon as he said "Why do you think I came all this way?" - Tyrion should have known.

That bit was terribly soapy - long lost twin type of thing! Without getting into "foreshadowing" he had to be there for some useful purpose with all that screen time!

hobie21

corny wrote: »

I feel dirty after watching that. Filth.

Unbelievable the vitriol thrown at this amazing series. Probably the most watched series in history and for a reason. You feel dirty because you are dirty and smelly you troll.

Shlippery

Bran remained a man of few words, and there really was no big reveal for whatever he was up to during Theons last stand in Ep 3.

Agfdgfdhgfd

everlast75

I know I might be lynched for saying it (I did not read the books and am not a fanatic) but I still thought it was an excellent series overall. The last season did appear rushed and while I would have liked more series, or even more episodes in this series, I don't think it was a huge let down, like a lot of people do.


Kudos to the dragon, who realised it was the Iron Throne that killed Dany and not Jon.


And while Tyrion finding Jamie and Cersei might have gotten some of ye in the feels, Jon re-uniting with Ghost made it for me.

rob316

I have no problem with any of the outcomes but it needed more time the whole season, the pacing was awful and rushed. I was so disappointed when they wrapped up the battle of winterfell in one episode.
People seething over Bran are forgetting R Martin told the writers who the eventual king was. I liked that part it was a nice surprise.

I said already they killed the momentum of the show with the longer break, it raised it to ridiculous expectations that were never going to be met. Writers didn't know what to do with the longer run times - they packed the battles episodes with too much and the filler episodes weren't used to flesh out the plots and character changes.

People comparing it to the end of LOST need to have a lie down, nothing comes close to that pile of crap finale.

is_that_so

hobie21 wrote: »

Unbelievable the vitriol thrown at this amazing series. Probably the most watched series in history and for a reason. You feel dirty because you are dirty and smelly you troll.

Amazing? Not entirely; in the main, up to the end of Season 6 it was very good. After that really not so much. A whole lot of that was undone in wrapping it up.

Penn

Like most of the episodes this season, I enjoyed it for the most part. I enjoyed Dany's end and Drogon burning the throne. I liked most of the characters endings, it was about as well as it could have been done. Brienne completing Jamie's entry in the book was great too, I really liked that.

Again though, a few small additional scenes or lines of dialogue would have made all the difference. They sacrificed Jon to the Night's Watch to please the Unsullied and Dothraki even though the Unsullied at least left Westeros the same day as Jon was being sent off. Yara should have been arguing for it too given she pledged herself to Dany, and Jon should have agreed with his sentence (as otherwise like someone else upthread said, he would have been protected once he got to the North by Sansa anyway). They should have had Sansa float that idea to him during their goodbye, but have Jon say he'd go to the Night's Watch as that's where he really belongs and to keep the peace etc.

Bronn being Master of Coin and agreeing to give money to the Crown doesn't make much sense either considering the Lannisters stole all the money from Highgarden to pay off the Iron Bank. Brienne being Kingsguard to Bran doesn't make a lot of sense either, it would have made more sense for her to be Queensguard to Sansa.

The worst part of the episode though hands-down was Sam saying the name of the book. Holy f*ck who thought that was a good idea? And Tyrion doesn't get mentioned in it even as "Hand of the King to Joffrey" or anything? Either way, a horribly ham-fisted excuse for fan-service worse than most of the other fan-service that's happened this season.

I liked this season on the whole though. It limped over the finish line, but overall I don't think it was bad enough to tarnish the show completely, though it has definitely created a stigma of an unsatisfying conclusion that it will likely never shake off even in retrospect.

Necro

dark crystal wrote: »

I must have been one of the few people who really enjoyed this last season from start to (almost) finish.


I can't forgive them that ending, though.


****ing Brandon Stark as King of the six kingdoms? Whaaaaat?? He's done nothing to deserve that. Nothing. Going from no interest in power of any kind to stating that he travelled "all this way" to become King!? Wtf


Aegon Targeryan is then banished to the Night's Watch just like he was as a bastard. Saves the world a few times, but sure, banishment is good enough for him while his useless cousin gets to rule the world he saved.



That's the end to Jon's story after everything? Really?? It's ****ed me right off :mad:

No you ain't alone. I really liked this season and was willing to ignore the flaws it had....

But Bran on the throne really annoyed me too.

Hyzepher

So hold on now!

The whole war of the iron throne was directly a result of multiple people believing that they were the rightful king. Not accepting anyone else's claim and willing to kill everyone in their way to get it. Then suddenly they give up the throne to someone who would never in a million years ever get it. They are all willing to be ruled by someone who didn't even have an obvious role in defeating Cercei.

Not even remotely plausible

is_that_so

Penn wrote: »

Like most of the episodes this season, I enjoyed it for the most part. I enjoyed Dany's end and Drogon burning the throne. I liked most of the characters endings, it was about as well as it could have been done. Brienne completing Jamie's entry in the book was great too, I really liked that.

Again though, a few small additional scenes or lines of dialogue would have made all the difference. They sacrificed Jon to the Night's Watch to please the Unsullied and Dothraki even though the Unsullied at least left Westeros the same day as Jon was being sent off. Yara should have been arguing for it too given she pledged herself to Dany, and Jon should have agreed with his sentence (as otherwise like someone else upthread said, he would have been protected once he got to the North by Sansa anyway). They should have had Sansa float that idea to him during their goodbye, but have Jon say he'd go to the Night's Watch as that's where he really belongs and to keep the peace etc.

Bronn being Master of Coin and agreeing to give money to the Crown doesn't make much sense either considering the Lannisters stole all the money from Highgarden to pay off the Iron Bank. Brienne being Kingsguard to Bran doesn't make a lot of sense either, it would have made more sense for her to be Queensguard to Sansa.

The worst part of the episode though hands-down was Sam saying the name of the book. Holy f*ck who thought that was a good idea? And Tyrion doesn't get mentioned in it even as "Hand of the King to Joffrey" or anything? Either way, a horribly ham-fisted excuse for fan-service worse than most of the other fan-service that's happened this season.

I liked this season on the whole though. It limped over the finish line, but overall I don't think it was bad enough to tarnish the show completely, though it has definitely created a stigma of an unsatisfying conclusion that it will likely never shake off even in retrospect.

If they were keeping them all alive they had to give them a "purpose". Book, Bronn, Drogon and the throne, masses of Dothraki and Unsullied, Sam and Grey Worm were all large irritants in this but it still delivered a reasonable ending if you expected nothing of it.

hobie21

Penn wrote: »

Like most of the episodes this season, I enjoyed it for the most part. I enjoyed Dany's end and Drogon burning the throne. I liked most of the characters endings, it was about as well as it could have been done. Brienne completing Jamie's entry in the book was great too, I really liked that.

Again though, a few small additional scenes or lines of dialogue would have made all the difference. They sacrificed Jon to the Night's Watch to please the Unsullied and Dothraki even though the Unsullied at least left Westeros the same day as Jon was being sent off. Yara should have been arguing for it too given she pledged herself to Dany, and Jon should have agreed with his sentence (as otherwise like someone else upthread said, he would have been protected once he got to the North by Sansa anyway). They should have had Sansa float that idea to him during their goodbye, but have Jon say he'd go to the Night's Watch as that's where he really belongs and to keep the peace etc.

Bronn being Master of Coin and agreeing to give money to the Crown doesn't make much sense either considering the Lannisters stole all the money from Highgarden to pay off the Iron Bank. Brienne being Kingsguard to Bran doesn't make a lot of sense either, it would have made more sense for her to be Queensguard to Sansa.

The worst part of the episode though hands-down was Sam saying the name of the book. Holy f*ck who thought that was a good idea? And Tyrion doesn't get mentioned in it even as "Hand of the King to Joffrey" or anything? Either way, a horribly ham-fisted excuse for fan-service worse than most of the other fan-service that's happened this season.

I liked this season on the whole though. It limped over the finish line, but overall I don't think it was bad enough to tarnish the show completely, though it has definitely created a stigma of an unsatisfying conclusion that it will likely never shake off even in retrospect.

The show was made for TV and to please the masses, not just the die hard book fans. Compromises had to be made so I think it did a fair enough job in its conclusion.

Nody

Hyzepher wrote: »

So hold on now!

The whole war of the iron throne was directly a result of multiple people believing that they were the rightful king. Not accepting anyone else's claim and willing to kill everyone in their way to get it. Then suddenly they give up the throne to someone who would never in a million years ever get it. They are all willing to be ruled by someone who didn't even have an obvious role in defeating Cercei.

Not even remotely plausible

The only way I see it (and it's weak) is that they see it as a chance to grab more power for themselves by having a weak uninterested king who'll not bother to check on them.

Exclamation Marc

is_that_so

Nody wrote: »

The only way I see it (and it's weak) is that they see it as a chance to grab more power for themselves by having a weak uninterested king who'll not bother to check on them.

I think there was an attempt(rushed and not terribly well done) to get the idea of war weariness across as well as the novelty of actually picking a king. Mostly it was just spouting lines, though.

First Up

I've said I'm not as immersed in it as many here but there has been nothing -zero, diddly squat - in anything I've seen of Bran to suggest he has even the remotest entitlement to anything.

He has obviously played some key part in it all that I completely missed. Can anyone summarise it for me?

Exclamation Marc

First Up wrote: »

I've said I'm not as immersed in it as many here but there has been nothing -zero, diddly squat - in anything I've seen of Bran to suggest he has even the remotest entitlement to anything.

He has obviously played some key part in it all that I completely missed. Can anyone summarise it for me?

I think if anyone needs to summarise it to you, it just shows that it was either the wrong decision for him to be King or a decision that needed more exposition.

And I think it was the latter.

Dial Hard

I'm with this guy.

johnny_ultimate

I was never a big fan of Game of Thrones, but something I truly appreciated about the first couple of seasons was how 'anti Lord of the Rings' it was (Lord of the Rings being a broad stand-in for a certain style of fantasy). Whereas the big name fantasy was often this hero-driven, crowdpleasing storytelling, Game of Thrones was cruel and ruthless. It was adult - often in the adolescent HBO sense of tits, gore and swearing, but more admirably in the sense of its willingness to surprise and challenge the audience's expectations of the storytelling. I don't want to paint it as a particularly radical piece of storytelling or anything - but it was something different.

The Game of Thrones finale, like much of the final season, was very Lord of the Rings. It wraps things up tidily and predictably. Every character gets their moment of triumph or release - even Jon, who suffers most out of the survivors, seems to find peace despite exile and loss of his one true love. Evil was conquered (any ambiguity about Dany swiftly extinguished in her delusional final speeches, and, y'know, the genocide) and the good guys prevail.

Taken on those terms, it's not a bad example of the form. The high production values remain (although truly thought that dragon shot was super contrived and cheesy), and we get some final moments of brilliance from the show's ultimate star Ramin Djawadi. It is *nice* to see our heroes end up pretty much all where they deserve to be - whether that's on a new adventure, or taking their rightful seat of power. There are *nice* crowdpleasing, funny and triumphant moments throughout - a personal favourite was Davos chiming in that he doesn't think he gets a vote.

But *nice* isn't a word I'd have expected to invoke when it comes to Game of Thrones. It's representative of where the show has ended up. To me, it's a show that rather than doubling down on its unique aspects as it became more popular, it decided to fade into the crowd. It made fan favourite characters invincible because they were fan favourites. It's not the resolutions or destinations here don't make sense (although some of the dodgier writing does its best to make it seem that way). It's that everything feels neat and tidy. Game of Thrones at its best wasn't neat or tidy - it was messy, bloody and surprising.

There are more specific problems here. Some of the characters act bizarrely in the first half of the episode, and you don't know which version of them you're going to get from scene to scene. Tyrion explaining to Jon why Dany was not a good queen was preposterous for me - even given Jon's love for her, someone having to persuade him that the genocide he just witnessed wasn't a good omen was pretty dumb. But I think individual examples of shaky writing are ultimately a symptom of the macro-level problems. Game of Thrones bowed out as a rollicking, familiar, crowdpleasing fantasy epic - it just didn't necessarily start out that way.

As an aside, here's one of the best pieces of writing about the season I've read, from writer & academic Zeynep Tufekci. Written before this episode, but IMO takes a fascinating alternative perspective on the show's shift in approach: https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/the-real-reason-fans-hate-the-last-season-of-game-of-thrones/

Nody

First Up wrote: »

I've said I'm not as immersed in it as many here but there has been nothing -zero, diddly squat - in anything I've seen of Bran to suggest he has even the remotest entitlement to anything.

He has obviously played some key part in it all that I completely missed. Can anyone summarise it for me?

Got crippled by Tyrion's brother; was the target for the NK to attack Winterfell and told Sansa & Arya the truth about John's inheritance. Oh and don't want to rule anything and lives in the past but was planning to become king all along.

meeeeh

Nody wrote: »

The only way I see it (and it's weak) is that they see it as a chance to grab more power for themselves by having a weak uninterested king who'll not bother to check on them.

It's not just that. A lot of the Iron Born were wiped out in one or the other Sea Battle. Baratheons just got a new head who used to be a blacksmith. Tyrells are gone and replaced by Bronn. Tyrion is the only Lannister left, their army mostly gone. Martells, Tullys, Eyrie have done ok but two of those houses are in one or other way connected to the Starks. Starks were actually the best connected and probably the strongest family left. when they got a king who can't start a dynasty it was the easiest person to agree on. What bothers me is how easily and quickly they got to that conclusion.

GavRedKing

It 100% needed another season. 6 episodes to wrap up 2 major stories was the stupidest thing I've ever seen, looking back.

I guessed Bran would be king before the season started only because I felt theyed pull some mad switch fir the sake of it but that ending left a lot to be desired m

I'm not one for fan service but if that's how GRRM wants to end the books, he's better off not completing them.

Nody

johnny_ultimate wrote: »

As an aside, here's one of the best pieces of writing about the season I've read, from writer & academic Zeynep Tufekci. Written before this episode, but IMO takes a fascinating alternative perspective on the show's shift in approach: https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/the-real-reason-fans-hate-the-last-season-of-game-of-thrones/

New favorite term to be thrown into conversations; Arya ex machina :P

alchemist33

[Deleted User] wrote: »

Tyrion: "Will you lead the Seven Kingdoms to the best of your abilities from this day until your last day?"
Bran: "Why do you think I came all this way?"

So the ultimate bad guy in the show was the Three-Eyed Raven. Knowing he would become king means knowing King's Landing was going to burn. He didn't warn anyone because he wanted the throne. He even sends the true heir to the Night's Watch so he can't be usurped.

This is it. The three eyed raven, probably one of the least explored characters in the story, manipulated everything, allowing thousands (or a million) deaths, to ultimately rule. And no character seemed to notice or care. It's a terribly-written ending.

touts

Bran's been high as a kite for the last 3 seasons and he's the one who they pick as King? On the basis that he tells good stories? Has he said anything that went into double figures this season.

This season was at times excellent but really suffered from having only 6 episodes. It felt like they reached the point of Dany being dead and suddenly realized they only had 20min and no budget left to tie it all up. Imagine if we were facing into another two episodes with Jon and Tyrion in prison for treason and the council being called to trash it all out. They could go into the politics of power and over the next couple of episodes we could see Bran or whoever be chosen in a considered manner. Arya might have had to kill a couple of hardliner characters like Greyworm etc. We could have seen Sam become a Maester, Brienne opt to join the Kings Guard etc. It would just have felt more developed and rounded.

md23040

The only thing more annoying than the storyline for me was that Tyrion sounded very like Stewie Griffin (Family Guy) throughout the final episode. Maybe Peter Dinklage knew it was a steaming pile of dung and decided to ham it up and take the piss.

[Deleted User]

[Deleted User] wrote: »

Tyrion: "Will you lead the Seven Kingdoms to the best of your abilities from this day until your last day?"
Bran: "Why do you think I came all this way?"

So the ultimate bad guy in the show was the Three-Eyed Raven. Knowing he would become king means knowing King's Landing was going to burn. He didn't warn anyone because he wanted the throne. He even sends the true heir to the Night's Watch so he can't be usurped.

You said it better than I posted earlier but, yip, in s nutshell.