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

14-05-2019 12:46AM

I'd say Cersei may have been regretting not keeping Missendei visible in the Red Keep, or even like strapped to the roof to lure Dany in and have some of those machines pointed there.

She caused her own death by needlessly executing what she believed to be a translator and a friend.

False Prophet · 14-05-2019 12:57AM

[Deleted User] wrote: »

I'd say Cersei may have been regretting not keeping Missendei visible in the Red Keep, or even like strapped to the roof to lure Dany in and have some of those machines pointed there.

She caused her own death by needlessly executing what she believed to be a translator and a friend.

Maybe she was hoping that Dany would attack right then without support due to the anger or make some error.

lawlolawl · 14-05-2019 01:03AM

False Prophet wrote: »

Maybe she was hoping that Dany would attack right then without support due to the anger or make some error.

She didn't need support.

One dragon destroyed the entire Iron Fleet, all of the elite mercenaries and all of the cities defenses in about 5 minutes.

MightyMandarin · 14-05-2019 01:30AM

To be honest I just think D&D underestimated the audience's attention span and intelligence this entire season. The production has been great and the acting too, but ****in hell this plot could've been written better by a 6 year old.

Soooo many holes, so many ridiculous character arcs and useless plotlines (we went through 7 years of Bran becoming the 3 eyed raven and Hodor existing for essentially nothing). I mean was anyone really surprised by Daenarys turning into the mad Queen? We'd been warned right from the beginning by Robert and if you paid any attention the past 3 episodes you could see her falling rapidly. Her flying around burning up the whole city didn't surprise me one bit tbh.

I'm more angry at all these things they left unanswered and never will be. At least Azor Ahai is on though, I really hope Jon kills Daenarys now.

Foxtrol · 14-05-2019 01:46AM

MightyMandarin wrote: »

To be honest I just think D&D underestimated the audience's attention span and intelligence this entire season. The production has been great and the acting too, but ****in hell this plot could've been written better by a 6 year old.

Soooo many holes, so many ridiculous character arcs and useless plotlines (we went through 7 years of Bran becoming the 3 eyed raven and Hodor existing for essentially nothing). I mean was anyone really surprised by Daenarys turning into the mad Queen? We'd been warned right from the beginning by Robert and if you paid any attention the past 3 episodes you could see her falling rapidly. Her flying around burning up the whole city didn't surprise me one bit tbh.

I'm more angry at all these things they left unanswered and never will be. At least Azor Ahai is on though, I really hope Jon kills Daenarys now.

I want to agree with the bolded but when so many are completely shocked about Daenary's choices, I'm not sure what would have happened if there was something more complicated or surprising added in.

When the show went past the books and reached a certain size audience they just played it relatively safe, went formulaic, and appears just sidelined pieces of the plot they didn't feel bothered with closing out.

PressRun · 14-05-2019 01:48AM

~Rebel~ wrote: »

Ok. So. Daenerys.

I've read through all the comments, and the biggest justification for her switch is that the signs were there all along, she was already violent etc.

That's true - this clearly has been the ultimate ending planned. There were plenty of signs hinting towards it. That's grand.

But the jump between where she was not long ago, and where she switched to last night was too much, too soon. It needed to be earned within her character, but it wasn't. It needed a full extra season's worth of dedicated character progression.

Looking at it from a blunt plot point of view, people point to; "she suffered great loss, and snapped", but just think about the practicalities of that from an emotional point of view: What would it take you to go outside and murder a bunch of random strangers? That's the leap we're talking about. Not just having a mental breakdown, not just having a huge mood swing, or a self destructive episode, but actually becoming a murderous psychopath on a vast scale.

This was a woman who we've seen go through incredible trauma - bred to be sold by her brother, then losing her husband, and her unborn baby. Her entire story and character from that point has been based around stopping this sort of thing happening to innocents. She's had incredibly brutal and violent instincts since then, but always always in service of the greater good.

Her switching to a psycho wasn't the disaster, that switch is a really interesting choice for the story viewed in the wider context - but them not providing enough of the in-between character changes required to be in any way even remotely realistic and earned was pure laziness/rushed storytelling. We needed to see her start to show malice and violence on a smaller scale towards generally innocent people without a clear greater goal at the heart of her actions. Like, for instance if Dickon Tarly had bent the knee as his Dad wished, and she burned him anyway saying the whole family were traitors, that would have been a great little character builder. But they didn't do that. Or anything like that.

They did all the broad thematic setup, and the foreshadowing - but not the nuts and bolts character change and development required for such a monumental change in personality and behaviour. In short order, they turned her from a ruthless but pragmatic Roose Bolton into full on crazy Ramsey Bolton.

Agree with all of this.
The issue isn't that she went mad, the writing has been on the wall there, the issue is that something that should have been delicately played out over a season or two happened in 2 episodes. You can point to the slavers or whatever, but that's a far cry from going nuclear on a city and all its civilians after the war was already clearly won. She's obviously always had a temper, but it was previously always informed by a sense of justice and wanting to do the right thing, even if it didn't always work out that way. She even locked up her dragons in a dungeon after they burned one innocent child. The show in the past has been great at a slow burn, but this felt rushed, so while it was visually spectacular and there was some catharsis in seeing Cersei's forces so completely overpowered, it didn't have a huge amount of bite as a pay off for me. When you compare it with Cersei's slow unravelling over a few seasons, it doesn't have the same impact, imo.

ERG89 · 14-05-2019 02:00AM

PressRun wrote: »

the issue is that something that should have been delicately played out over a season or two happened in 2 episodes.

aka Gotham syndrome - a promising story arc ruined by doing everything so fast it's like the world ends in 30 minutes

False Prophet · 14-05-2019 02:04AM

I think it would have been a bit better if Dany attacked the red keep directly to get cersai once bells rang. Then could have her lose control from that and have her destroy the city and people in order to kill a hidden cersai in a couldn't stop once she started type thing.

Hobosan · 14-05-2019 02:33AM

namloc1980 wrote: »

Time and again we were told she was a saviour of the people.

If that didn't immediately set off alarm bells for you comrade, then I can recommend some movements that will not leave you with the ability to be disappointed!

Hobosan · 14-05-2019 03:04AM

They made a point to show that green fire (wild fire?) exploding as Dani scorched the place, perhaps implying that the 'innocent' had planned to target soldiers that broke through the last lines of defense.

That's not to say they deserved to be killed, but it does blur the line in terms of their complicity and how far they intended to go in protecting their Queen. Quite far it seems.

A shame they managed to make a balls of previous episodes, and this one in many ways, yet had the time to add some nice details and symbolism like this in a brief shot.

(Or else they thought it would just look nice, and put zero thought into the implication of wild fire exploding in the inner city, which a strong case could be made for! )

J. Marston · 14-05-2019 03:14AM

Hobosan wrote: »

They made a point to show that green fire (wild fire?) exploding as Dani scorched the place, perhaps implying that the 'innocent' had planned to target soldiers that broke through the last lines of defense.

That's not to say they deserved to be killed, but it does blur the line in terms of their complicity and how far they intended to go in protecting their Queen. Quite far it seems.

I'm sure they were the untouched caches of wildfire that her father had planted throughout the city.

She ended up completing her father's twisted plan.

vetinari · 14-05-2019 03:24AM

PressRun wrote: »

The show in the past has been great at a slow burn, but this felt rushed, so while it was visually spectacular and there was some catharsis in seeing Cersei's forces so completely overpowered, it didn't have a huge amount of bite as a pay off for me. When you compare it with Cersei's slow unravelling over a few seasons, it doesn't have the same impact, imo.

People are going to have to accept that the show's pacing for better or worse had changed for a few seasons now. Within that context, the change while shocking is less jarring. She also snapped while controlling a dragon! Things would have panned out differently if she had snapped in more sedate circumstances.

Hobosan · 14-05-2019 03:27AM

J. Marston wrote: »

I'm sure they were the untouched caches of wildfire that her father had planted throughout the city.

She ended up completing her father's twisted plan.

I can't remember that being mentioned previously. Fair play for remembering a small detail like that.

The fact the writers remembered such a detail, yet are content with so many other major inconsistencies and coincidences is hilarious.

I might just pretend that they found the wildfire and used it as I said previously, and that Euron was battered against the rocks by the waves as Jamie strolled into the dungeons, among other things.

AidoEirE · 14-05-2019 03:27AM

Just watched the latest epsiode.

Im nothing but furious,

First half before the siege was good enough, all went down hill after that.

Jamie with one of the biggest redemptions arc's in the show gets stabbed each side by euron, tbf a nothing character here in the show, manages to walk to the top of the main hall of KL to the map.
Then brings herself to a blocked off way out.
And Boom they just die.

Brings me on to Cersei,
What a great Bitch she has been, i mean thats been superb acting by her all the way to this season and then she dies a flat death aswell.

The CGI, what was up with the horrid cgi. As soon as Grey Worm got his enemy the first time with the spear and it was obvious hiw bad it was i wasnt hopefull.

Cleagnebowl, a fans favourite upcoming event since we got the idea it would happen.
They did not do it any justice, zero at all. So disapointed. Was done so poorly.

This season has ruined it for me of being the top pedestal on pedestal upon shows.

The two year break has killed them. Serious poor cgi, characters getting a rushed death while others, like at winterfell will be rushed again the next episode and then its done.

Just pissed off to be honest. I havent been satisfied this season at all as a viewer

vetinari · 14-05-2019 03:27AM

ziedth wrote: »

The only thing that I cant defend is Jamie's character. I don't think they are dead personally but if they are why couldn't they have just had him run her through...... 8 seasons of character development (and my favourite character it must be said) pissed away. I really hope there is something more to it but I think it's one ask too much.

I understand being disappointed at his arc but some of the criticism makes it sound like Jaime became a traitor. He didn't take up arms against the "good" guys.

AidoEirE · 14-05-2019 03:39AM

Hobosan wrote: »

They made a point to show that green fire (wild fire?) exploding as Dani scorched the place, perhaps implying that the 'innocent' had planned to target soldiers that broke through the last lines of defense.

That's not to say they deserved to be killed, but it does blur the line in terms of their complicity and how far they intended to go in protecting their Queen. Quite far it seems.

A shame they managed to make a balls of previous episodes, and this one in many ways, yet had the time to add some nice details and symbolism like this in a brief shot.

(Or else they thought it would just look nice, and put zero thought into the implication of wild fire exploding in the inner city, which a strong case could be made for! )

I thought of it as the wildefire was made for the battle of blackwater
The first meistor knew of it and knew it was underground so could of been some lost storage.
Also could of been leftovers of the battle of blackwater.
Or leftover of the burning sept of balor.

Im sure plenty of it was left underground and not above as it was to tempermental

AidoEirE · 14-05-2019 03:40AM

vetinari wrote: »

I understand being disappointed at his arc but some of the criticism makes it sound like Jaime became a traitor. He didn't take up arms against the "good" guys.

What he did two episodes ago to where he ended up in the latest was a maseive step for me. Made no sense

ceadaoin. · 14-05-2019 03:48AM

Hobosan wrote: »

I can't remember that being mentioned previously. Fair play for remembering a small detail like that.

The fact the writers remembered such a detail, yet are content with so many other major inconsistencies and coincidences is hilarious.

.

I thought that it was the stuff left there by the mad king too. That's why Jamie killed him, to stop him burning kings landing and killing everyone. It was a pretty big detail to be fair and not some minor plot point. It's the reason he was killed.

IvySlayer · 14-05-2019 04:23AM

Interesting we never see a close up of Dany during her mad run.

Was she crying doing it or enjoying it?

Hobosan · 14-05-2019 04:29AM

ceadaoin. wrote: »

I thought that it was the stuff left there by the mad king too. That's why Jamie killed him, to stop him burning kings landing and killing everyone. It was a pretty big detail to be fair and not some minor plot point. It's the reason he was killed.

I'm still using floppy discs.

~Rebel~ · 14-05-2019 05:07AM

IvySlayer wrote: »

Interesting we never see a close up of Dany during her mad run.

Was she crying doing it or enjoying it?

A friend mentioned a hilarious idea today - if we see the burning from her POV next episode, and see that her eyes are warg’ed out, and Bran is controlling her from afar! Pure evil puppet master Bran, stirrin’ **** up!

Obviously not the case, but to be honest I’d prefer it to the reality! Even has more motivation than the reality too... could either be that the 3 eyed raven thing is a malevolent force, or could even be Bran using this as a way to turn people against Dany, so Jon is forced to become king. Bran can always justify **** with “I have seen he is the king we need”.

cursai · 14-05-2019 06:10AM

The White Wolf · 14-05-2019 06:39AM

Arghus wrote: »

It was a spectacular episode of television to look at, but Dany's sudden heel turn wasn't the least bit earned, nor was Cersei's sudden disintegration into a simpering fool and her and Jaime's death were so throwaway to be practically insulting. A lot of the internal logic went out the window in this episode - it was a total rush job: under-cooked and over-stuffed. I know the show has been in decline for the last few seasons, but I'm genuinely gutted that this is the way it's looking like it's going to go out: spectacular, but totally unsatisfying illogical bollocks.

I liked how Cersei was played in this episode; as Tywin told her before her problem is that she's not half as smart as she thinks she is.

She thought she had Dany twigged and that she'd play by the good guy rules only for Dany to out do her in the nutter stakes.

Once that happened we saw the real Cersei - an idiot in way too much out of her depth.

IvySlayer · 14-05-2019 06:42AM

~Rebel~ wrote: »

A friend mentioned a hilarious idea today - if we see the burning from her POV next episode, and see that her eyes are warg’ed out, and Bran is controlling her from afar! Pure evil puppet master Bran, stirrin’ shut up!

Obviously not the case, but to be honest I’d prefer it to the reality! Even has more motivation than the reality too... could either be that the 3 eyed raven thing is a malevolent force, or could even be Bran using this as a way to turn people against Dany, so Jon is forced to become king. Bran can always justify **** with “I have seen he is the king we need”.

So Dany for 40 mins is yelling DROGON STOP WTF

If Dany has is to die then Drogon has to be killed too. Only Bran could probably take him out unless Drogon starts listening to Jon.

klose · 14-05-2019 06:46AM

Bit disappointed Jamie's charecter arc story for 8 seasons was all for nothing? Cersei essentially gets a happy ending per se, surely a charecter that deserved to die by a sword.

The show sure has loved foreboding, how many times has dany said/people around her said that she would never be like her father? Then bam she does exactly what he set out to do and torch the city.

I enjoyed the episode all in all, yeah the writing and plot lines have gone wayward but you can't deny it was a hell of a spectacle.

Cleganebowl too, woo!

AidoEirE · 14-05-2019 07:03AM

Knight king and Daenyres something in common. Melisandre ya sly 1

ricero · 14-05-2019 07:21AM

The mountain reveal was hilarious.

This show died with the night king

Akrasia · 14-05-2019 07:41AM

At least jamie and cersai will be safe under that big pile of rocks

angel eyes 2012 · 14-05-2019 08:03AM

Does anyone know what the significance of Varys was with the letter and the child at the start of the episode. Who was he trying to inform and did he not burn the letter before he was taken away?

Knex* · 14-05-2019 08:13AM

angel eyes 2012 wrote: »

Does anyone know what the significance of Varys was with the letter and the child at the start of the episode. Who was he trying to inform and did he not burn the letter before he was taken away?

It'll be about as significant as Bran waging during the Battle of winterfell.

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

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