Watched Smaug attack on Lake Town again. Very visually similar and gives an idea of what Balerion the Black Dread would have looked like in battle. It has bells too!

 

https://old.reddit.com/r/freefolk/comments/bpr2mx/jaimes_trial_written_properly/

 

Apparently the last episode is 4 minutes shorter than announced. I doubt D&D decided to do any last minute editing to the ending because of general reaction to this season, but it's a curious change.

 

Those two only double down.
The longer episode had Jon petting Ghost while the two were beyond the Wall.
D&D cut that out of spite.

 

Even more amusing info. Three days ago Kit Harington couldn't co-host some event. Rumours say it was because he got a call from HBO to meet with its bosses. Assuming it was a reason for his absence, I'm trying to guess why they couldn't wait for the next day. The PR decisions could wait and there is no way they could film anything for the episode even if they wanted, but maybe they decided to add some ending narration or something? Though Sam would be a better choice for that.

 

All I want out of this episode is for Arya to do something. Perhaps she can be the one to kill Dany as she has become worse than Cersei ever was, or just Tyrion to end the Lannister line and avenge Ned, or just anything of consequence.

Her killing Night King was stupid and unearned, but taking away her revenge just feels like her time in Essos will be for nothing.

 

Starbucks cup 2.0

 

I guess Dany kind of forgot that she was riding a dragon.

Or Emilia Clarke got tired of pretending to ride a dragon in front of greenscreen.

 

So her killing the Night King was stupid and unearned, and the solution is to give her another stupid and unearned kill? Jon taking this long is bad enough, but can be explained by a shitty writer trying to echo Ned Stark's honor before reason bullshit to create drama for the finale. But if he really stands by while Dany does this without taking her out, it goes into outright character assassination.

Though considering how Jaime's arc ended up going it'll probably happen.

 

How is that unearned? She is all about revenge and with Cersei and Jofrey dead she really doesn't have anything to concentrate that on. So it's two choices: 1. embrace the need for revenge and kill the last Lannister.; 2. Move past it, realizing that there are things that are more important than revenge and deal with it.

 

She has no involvement with Dany at all. It would be terrible and a subversion for its own sake, like the Night King.

 

That was an unearned pat. How was Jon supposed to know he was going to be sent to the nonexistent nights watch and be reunited with Ghost.

 

I'm going to take "Drogon fucks off to Valyria" as a win, but everything leading up to the Six Kingdoms Republics and "King Bran the Broken" needs to get fucked with a rake.

 

And so our watch has ended.

 

What a terrible fucking ending.

Oh well.

 

Trash ending to a shitty season.

The Small Council meeting had me cringing.

At least Jon fucked off beyond the Wall with Tormund and the Free Folk.

 

And now that the show is over, onto my favourite part. The eviscerations.

 

You know what, I'm okay with this. Drogon for some reason burned the chair instead of Jon and (presumably) fucked off to Valyria. Unsullied gave up their bloodlust and just accepted Bran's decision, for some reason. Arya wants to be Magellan, for some reason. Presumably the lands north of the Wall are empty of people, or severely depopulated. I guess Jon is leading a ranging, or plans to rebuild Hardhome.

The culmination of Dany's arc was shit because the Mad Queen arc was shit. But I'm okay with all of this, because Brienne is... Lady? Commander of the Kingsguard, Sansa looked hella good as Queen In Da Norf and her shutting down Edmure cracked me up, and most importantly, Bronn got his castle.