Yeah fair enough. I dont think, clariyfining this adds anything meaningful (and considering how rushed everything already is). But I agree this is not obvious.

 

The reason why I think it's meaningful is that it feels like a deliberate omission to try to artificially introduce feminist themes into the show. You see it in the beginning of episode 4, where Jon is praised as a hero for riding a dragon while Danaerys is ignored for doing precisely the same thing (and being the one to provide the dragons). It feels like they're positioning the Jon vs Danaerys conflict as one between patriarchal privilege and a deserving woman overlooked because of her gender. But gender in fact plays no role in the superiority of Jon's claim.

 

God this is such fucking garbage at this point, it's like reading the shittiest fanfic where all the characters are completely OOC apart from a few moments, and the writer bashing you over the head while wanking himself off at his Epic!Moment.

 

I wake up and head to local Starbucks and all baristas are talking about is the Starbucks cup in the hall scene.

Must obtain of the dragon drink, for the queen.

 

"Starbucks paid them to put it there" strangely absent from the list of theories...

 

I opened up r/Starbucks and people are joking about the cup. I’ve only seen that theory on r/television so far.

I honestly wonder who dropped the ball and made Aegon Targaryen, Lost Son of the House Targaryen, Rightful Heir of the Iron Throne, The Red God’s Risen Hero, Drinker of Grande Black Coffee. (bullshit titles.)

 

Clearly, you haven't had the displeasure of reading youtube comments after the battle in 7x04. That's quite alright, I'm happy for you if anything.

For what it's worth, that's my headcanon on that. And there's no reason to think that Westeros should 'advance' past feudalism or that the world was static for the last 8000 years. After all, gunpowder doesn't exist per author fiat, whereas a lot of other Renaissance inventions are either commonplace in Westeros or are produced in the Free Cities (and then there's the moldy bread poultices so the Citadel aren't entirely useless). Couple the absence of gunpowder->standing armies and broken walls->centralization with Westeros having cultural norms about one castle per line and one line per castle alongside established primogeniture and I can actually see the feudal system holding.

The show seems to take pleasure in trolling book fans by messing with mostly trivial details from the books. They started by changing certain sentences the book fans were expecting (remember "Only Cat." ?), then last season Moat Cailin poofed out of existence and KL had a population of a million (even though they said half a million earlier in the show); and this season apparently the Gift doesn't exist to settle the wildlings in. Oh, and Gendry is a Rivers now, though D&D are hardly the first people to get confused about the bastard naming conventions. At this point I'm pretty sure this is also why Rhaegar named both of his sons Aegon.

The Brienne-Jaime romance was stupid, their reason for having sex was idiotic, and all this really wasn't necessary for Brienne to try to convince Jaime to stay and make that an emotional moment. But I'm willing to overlook that because Jaime's "I've never been with a knight before" was fucking gold. What I can't overlook is the stupid ass Bronn subplot. Bronn can't possibly expect to be able to retain Highgarden, or that they'll follow up, and I was wondering why the fuck Tyrion didn't just ask Varys to take care of a nuisance for him the whole fucking episode.

And I'm sure there's more stupid shit I'm forgetting (oh yeah, why did Tyrion survive that?), but I actually enjoyed the episode. Then again, I didn't hate the last episode either (the ending was idiotic, yes; but I felt it was less stupid strategy and more the zerging wights overwhelming everything and making half the battle plan unfeasible, and that's much better than Episode 2 where I'm pretty sure I saw Gendry quench fucking obsidian), and maybe that's because I didn't think the show was a mess until the latter half of Season 7, so I'm going into this with very lowered expectation but little vitriol, relatively. And I'm just happy they are exploring political intrigue again, and seeing as decent political intrigue had previously died around when Tywin did, they're doing much better than what I was expecting (two more episodes of filler and badly written dialogue followed by a Hollywood final battle was what I was expecting).

 

I've had a vision of the end of the last episode:

The Hound, Bronn, Gendry and Mord stood in front of the iron throne.

The Hound muttered, "What, shall we draw fucking straws?"

"This could be your big chance to get a date there, mush-face," said Bronn.

"I should've killed you when Stannis was storming the city."

"But you didn't, and now we're here, so... let's give it to the rightful king, here."

Gendry paled. "Look, it's not like having a bloodline means I know a single thing about ruling."

"Where is gold?" Mord shouted. "Throne is broken steel. Mord wants gold!"

Gendry then whispered, "... except that it shouldn't be him."

Bronn clapped him on the shoulder. "You'll do fine. Better than fine. Just make him Master of Coin."

"Then who should be my Hand?"

The Hound looked at Bronn. They replied, "Podrick."

 

My problem with this episode is that it's talks and schemes are happening in the void. What made them exciting in earlier seasons, and the books, was variety of players involved, all with their own agendas affecting everybody, even if they allied with the main characters at the moment.

These days, you only have these main characters and some generic mentions of a new Prince of Dorne and Yara somehow getting back the Iron Islands when two Great Lords that managed to survive don't even get that.

While the end needs to be more focused, it's like after all these wars and killing, the Westeros became a political desert when there should be plenty of upstarts trying their luck. Like Bronn.

 

I think Bronn is probably one of the only currently living characters actually shrewd and savvy enough to do so.

A) He knows all about 'money/power > loyalty', a constant GoT theme.

B) Screw social niceties, he'd just have you murdered in your sleep if you fuck with him politically.


I am confused as to why you would think either Tyrion or Jaime want Bronn dead? Bronn sides with whoever is most likely to give him what he's been promised/owed. That is literally the entire point of Bronn the Mercenary. Both Tyrion and Jaime have always known this. A Lannister always pays his debts, and the running theme is that Tyrion and Jaime's debt to Bronn has gotten bigger and bigger with every season. The whole subtext of the Jaime-Bronn-Tyrion interaction in this ep is that while they may all be the Bestest Of Friendos, Bronn has always been a cold, murdering bastard who wants his reward. He was that in his first appearance, and he hasn't grown since.

The only reason he isn't murdering them in this scene is that Tyrion and Jaime, not Cersei, are now the ones who are most likely to be able to pay out his reward. They are also the ones most likely to not reneg due to their history.

Not every char needs to grow emotionally, and I would be personally fine with Bronn's arc ending with him getting his promised payout.

 

While Bronn's adventures could end with him not getting anything and that being the point, after that scene I'm convinced D&D will give him a castle. For that either Tyrion or Jaime needs to survive and my money at the moment is on Tyrion.

 

Bronn did have an arc and a whole thing where he was filmed very deliberately having to choose between taking his gold and running or coming to the aid of characters he had grown to like and he dropped his gold and went to help Jamie and try to kill Drogon.

 

Best possible spinoff

 

Bronn has gone out of control.
Tyrion's informal conversations with Bronn should not make people forget just how above everyone else the sons of an LP are.

 

Really, the matter of reneging should have been at the forefront of that conversation, considering Cersei's reputation and actions. The whole scene would've flowed a lot better if Bronn's lines were something like "Cersei promised me Riverrun, but I know that crazy bitch will kill me once she doesn't need me anymore. Look at everyone else she's fucked. So ... you said if anyone ever asked me to kill you, you'd double what they offered me. Well I'm waiting."

 

Finally got the time to watch this, and I had to stop midway through and rant for a second.

It's like at the very end all they could pay attention to was the most surface-level, Twitter versions of the characters. These characters that they've spent years and years crafting and building, are suddenly just like cardboard cutouts. It's sad as fuck.

Varys. Fucking Varys, you you gradually learn isn't just a sort of scheming Polonius type but his whole deal is he's for the realm, he wants someone to rule who'll actually do an okay job. Varys. VARYS is the one who muses, about Jon, "he's a war hero. People seem drawn to him."

Like my dude I'm sorry what was your problem with ROBERT FUCKING BARATHEON again?

It's like we've just reduced Varys to "this is the guy who plots against people lol. Remember guys he's like a scheming guy? That's his thing right?"

Why. I don't get it. Don't they have a huge writing staff? Don't they talk about this stuff?

 

So Gendry is now the heir to the Iron Throne, right?

To anyone who doesn't know about Jon anyway.

 

Robert being an irresponsible drunkard who put the kingdom into massive debt with his non-stop parties, and let the likes of Cersei Lannister and Littlefinger into the halls of power, probably.

Granted, that just goes to show that being charming and a war hero doesn't translate to being a good king. Which I honestly don't think Jon would be, given what we've seen of him so far. He's inept at politics, emotionally driven, and far more interested in running off on personal quests instead of staying in a command position where he belongs. The only hope is that he appoints a good Hand to actually run things while he's off chasing down bandits or whatever.

 

I mean, endings are hard. I think it is clear that while the writing team had the guidance of GRRM's notes and input for a large portion of these later seasons post ADD, the official GRRM ending was probably just a vague idea and some bullet points. He still doesn't know how to tie up all his fantasy plot points in a satisfying way, and he still doesn't know how to make the aftermath of the fantasy arc feel important. That's why it is taking him ages and ages to write the ending and why he's fucked around with so much other stuff. Writer's block is a mean bitch.

The show's writers thus are trying to do George's job for him, filling in all the blanks and trying to tie stuff up as best they can, and it just.... isn't working out. These guys and gals are all Hollywood screenwriters, masters of the 'wouldn't it be cool if' and the 'that'll look awesome'.

They are not, however, crafters of epic fantasy.

 

Right, that's my point. Varys, of all people, getting cold feet at Dany and starting to think Jon should be king, just... what? I find it really hard to buy considering Varys of all people should know the trap of "let's get the war hero with charisma to run things."

Yeah, that's pretty much where I'm at.

It's just.... puzzling. This isn't even about wrapping things up in a narratively satisfying bow, it's about letting the wires show to a degree where the writers might as well be moving the characters around like game pieces. It was one of the strengths of the show, not really all that long ago, that drama happened because of who the characters were, the choices they made, rather than drama happening to them because of Plot.

The middle seasons felt like I was immersed in a story. This feels like I'm watching the writers and producers describe to each other a series of scenes.