Game of Thrones: the end
May. 21st, 2019 12:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
So that was defnintely something. I'm not sure what, but something. Where even to start?
You can count me among the many many people who didn't like the way Daenerys' arc went down. Not that she couldn't have gone the way she did, but there was no character development between killing a bunch of slaveowners who have just been crucifying children and Dothraki khals who want to kill her and torching all of King's Landing like she's riding a giant flaming lawnmower. A lot of the writing in this episode struck me as being an overt attempt to sell the story the writers were telling irrespective of their ability to tell that story, and Tyrion's speech to Jon definitely fell into that category. The gap in the logic is still there, and what little character development their was remains entirely circular: the best reading I can come up with is that Daenerys wasn't insane to start with, but she became more and more so because everyone kept treating her like she was already dangerous and evil. I mean, Varys was trying to poison her, by the end there. It's not paranoia when your advisors are actually plotting against you, but even that doesn't explain her decision to torch King's Landing.
What I thought was going to happen in episode 5 was something like this: Tyrion sets Jaime free to rescue Cersei and tells him to make them ring the bells to surrender. Jaime reaches Cersei, and she somehow uses this bit of information to trap Daenerys and massacre some of her forces, and this betrayal is what tips Dany into whole-sale slaughter. But no, instead she just randomly decided to wipe the city out, because she is a Targaryen and that's what they do, even before she's learned that Tyrion betrayed her.
Unless they're named Jon, I guess. As an aside, I still don't understand what the rationale for Grey Worm not executing Jon and Tyrion immediately was: it doesn't really make sense for him. I get that it might be too late by the time the committee meeting takes place, when the other lords of Westeros have had a chance to collect their armies, but at the moment of Dany's death Grey Worm definitely has military superiority, and also has no fucks left to give.
I just want to note that every time Dany has tried to compromise it has ended badly for her, so it's perfectly possible to see her decide to throw compromise ot the winds and torch all her enemies, and lots of other people too. The show just never actually laid sufficient groundwork for it.
That's kind of the running theme this season, though, isn't it? The same is true of Sansa's hostility to Daenerys, and her insistance on the political independence of the North -- even though they certainly do need Dany's help to defeat the Others. I never thought I would be dissatisfied by an ending where Sansa got crowned Queen in the North, and yet here I am.
The other most WTF thing of all is of course Bran and his sudden ascendency. Again it was pretty obvious that Tyrion was speaking for the showrunners when he started talking about how important story is, but it was pretty weird that he decided to focus on a guy whose story is notoriously boring. (I did love the looks of increasing amazement on both Sansa and Arya's faces: this is the guy whose story is the most interesting? really) I mean, even Gendry has a better story and he spent a couple of seasons on a rowboat.
So this is what I think. It is true that the show and the books have been trailing hints that Daenerys might be an antagonist in the end, but they've been doing the same for Bran as well, and I think that's the best explanation. Bran used himself as bait in Winterfell to weaken Daenerys' forces (note that the Dothraki and Unsullied took the brunt of the fighting), and encouraged both Sam and Sansa to question Dany's right and fitness to rule. He ensured that Sansa and Arya would know that Jon was the legitimate heir, in full knowledge that Sansa would be likely to push for Jon to stake his claim and that Arya would kill anyone who threatened him.
Then Dany heads south to get rid of Cersei and Jaime, removing one obstacle (and mind control by Bran might explain Jaime's apparent change of heart towards Brienne). Sansa has told Tyrion about Jon's true heritage, and he shares that with Varys, and between the two of them they start to drive Dany into greater and greater paranoia. Eventually she snaps, and eventually Tyrion manages to persuade Jon to kill her. I'm not entirely sure whether Tyrion is actually working with Bran, or whether he is being manipulated by him.
Bran might have expected Jon to be killed, either by Drogon or by Dany's supporters, but no matter what he knows that Jon doesn't want to rule and will accept exile rather than kingship, thus leaving the road clear for Tyrion to put Bran forward for the throne, and for everyone to go ahead and agree even though he's hardly done anything even remotely kingly in the entire series, or at least not since Theon torched Winterfell. Bran then reveals that this was his plan all along with that line about why he came South.
And note that in the final scene Bran comes in to the council to reveal that he is going to try to find Drogon with his three-eyed-crow powers; obviously his plan is to bring Drogon back to serve as his weapon and ensure that he is unchallenged (since otherwise Dorne at least is likely to want to follow the North's example and claim independence).
If only his eyes had flashed blue at the end, alas. He is like the evil version of Charles Xavier.
Anyway, at least it's over now. The end.
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Date: 2019-05-21 03:42 pm (UTC)Mostly I just want to read the two unwritten books. Even more, now.
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Date: 2019-05-21 06:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-05-23 03:22 pm (UTC)I'm also unhappy about Jaime and Brienne; why even go there just to immediately undo it. Knighting her would be enough of a declaration on its own. I feel he'd earned a better end, too. Even Cersei had earned a less pitiful end! But as far as I'm concerned none of it happened this way (except Sansa as Queen in the North).
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Date: 2019-05-24 03:08 pm (UTC)I agree about Jaime & Brienne: his knighting her was so important, and I hate that they got together just for him to leave her: I would really rather they hadn't at all.
There is so much in the ending I find hard to swallow -- not just Jaime and Cersei's end, but the fact that the show wanted me to feel sorry for them! No, I'm sorry. And that Tyrion and Jon both survived, which made no sense in the immediate dramatic context or in the larger narrative context. In my head they're both dead.
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Date: 2019-05-21 05:00 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-05-21 06:27 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-05-21 07:28 pm (UTC)It's over, but I can't help fiddling with it in my mind for now. I'm sure that'll pass.
(I'm also amazed that my polar bear icon from Lost really just keeps giving....)
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Date: 2019-05-21 09:17 pm (UTC)It's good thing we all have a lot of experience with shows that totally fall apart halfway through, right?
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Date: 2019-05-22 06:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-05-22 07:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-05-26 03:53 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-05-22 04:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-05-22 07:20 pm (UTC)I think I will end up just ignoring the ending.it didn't make enough sense for me to do anything else, and there are certain things about it that still make me really angry whenever I think about them. And even the things I liked didn't make up for them.