Someday, people will stop posting stupid memes full of shallow bad faith "criticism" of the displeasure with the episode.

But it is not this day.

 

To be fair, the picture in and of itself isn't necessarily wrong. That was absolutely a thing that happened and all.

It's just that it ignores like a decade of character development, narrative/thematic weight, and the general flow of cause and effect.

 

Which is what makes it such a shallow response it's in bad faith. It's searching for a cheap "gotcha" rather than actually having any real engagement with why people don't like how the episode was executed.

 

Aye. Its getting a cheap "I told you so" in. If the episode was actually good there would not be so many posts defending it or snarky memes calling out the "haters".

 

Fundamentally, if you view the episode in isolation, it was a good episode. Well acted, well paced, amazing visuals and music. The problem with the episode is not the episode itself, but rather with how it sits with all the episodes that came before it.

 

Exactly that, Mad Queen Daenerys would've would've been a great twist if it had any setup outside the episode itself, or even just something to properly set her off. Instead of killing Rhaegal and Missandei off for shock value in episode 4, kill one or both of them in episode 5. At least that way there's an obvious reason why Daenerys flips out. Have Rhaegal get killed off by a couple scorpions hidden on rooftops after the bells start ringing. Have Cersei be the smug bitch she used to be back when there was book material, and execute Missandei right before the surrender as a final "fuck you" to Daenerys. Instead she just starts burning tens of thousands of civilians and children for no discernible reason.

But yeah, no denying that the production values were top notch, and the actors are all doing their best. It's just that the most important story turn of the episode is a dumb out of nowhere twist.

 

From Reddit



"And I'd get into all these arguments and fights with the writers and they're like "Yeah, we heare you." "Yeah but please, you have to babiba..." And they go "Yeah, we hear you and we respect you, but we don't care. Ok, we don't.. (fuck). You're an actor, just say the words." They didn't say it like that, but that was the gist.
And the funny thing is, we've gotten through these song-and-dance-routines every season since season 4, where I come back and I'm like "This doesn't make sense!""

 

The problem is that despite his letter burning moment in the books, Jaime probably will end up back with Cersei at the end.

 

Valonqar is a part of the prophecy in the books, unlike the show. George might do something clever with it.

 

They're memes, not legitimate/fair critiques of the show. Critics and fans have rightfully called out how the Mad Queen shit for Danny hasn't been built up properly but people but the people making these memes are mostly just doing it for a laugh.

 

The show also had that scene with Melara, Cersei and Maggi. Was Valonqar not mentioned ?
Even if GRRM gets Jaime back to Cersei it might be to strangle her. That is very different from the show.

 

Cersei still visited the oracle, but the show dropped the valonqar bit.

 

Valonqar is not mentioned in the show for some reason.

 

I kinda liked the turn Danrerys took. After fighting for years and years, and all the loss and sacrifices it took to get to this point, the battle is over in 5 seconds. Yeah that would probably piss me off too.

Probably would have been better to not ask her to stand down when the bells rung. I blame Tyrion for that.

 

In hindsight, it seems like a first draft decision without editing. Having Dany torch the place without a direct provocation (e.g. her dragon being shot in front of her after the bells are rung) seems bad in comparison to all the options they had. A credit to the actors and the music then that they made me feel immersed nevertheless.

Was GRRM heavily involved in how this played out? Even if he's a pantser and not a plotter, he's definitely got the writing chops to detect a severe lack of character motiviation when he sees it.

 

@Eilyfe, you don't need to be a internationally known writer hailed as the American Tolkien to detect the severe lack of character motivation in that abortion of a scene.

 

I think that Valonqar can be even done in TV show yet or in the same scenario in the book - maybe somehow Cersei survived collapse because Jamie shielded her with his body, he died and his body is on top of Cersei and is literally choking her do death with it's weight.

 

It is a scene that could theoretically work better in a book than a TV show, since we could have access to Daenerys' inner thoughts while she's snapping and going Mad Queen.

 

The show doesn't want us to sympathise Dany in that moment, that's why there's no justifiable reason for her to do what she's done. I don't really like it, but then again we're all being positioned not to. This is one of those unfortunate episodic moments where they could still salvage the season with their execution on the final episode, but the cliffhanger drives people mental. Whether or not I have faith in DnD to finish this thing is another story, but I bet they have been agonising over this moment for a long time. So I'm curious. Like the last few seasons, it feels like the plot has been driving the characters rather than the characters driving the plot like the earlier seasons.

Which means that if there is one moment that they've truly thought out, it's probably the ending.