Ravenya003

Fun episode, especially with our first villain of the week that wasn't Alice. Pretty sure Magpie will be back, especially with her "rob from the rich" spiel. I like that Kate is uncomfortable with her secret identity explicitly because she's so upfront about who she is in all other respects. There are plenty of superhero/secret identity shows out there that flirt with it being a metaphor for being in the closet ("have you tried NOT being a mutant?"), but I think this is the first time it's been framed in this particular way: a gay woman who is uncomfortable being IN the closet. On a related note, I like the contrast in how Mary reacts to Batwoman and Kate: a big fangirl with the former, and a little awkward with the latter. Along with the gay metaphor, it's a familiar trope of the superhero genre (a single person responding very differently to two sides of a persona) but tweaked to make it feel fresh and original. Unlike Kate giving the "I can't be with you because of other commitments" speech to Regan. Even between two women, it's old hat. Weaponizing Martha's pearls made me laugh; they really are the most famous bit of fictional jewellery out there, aren't they. Mary and the stepmother remain the two most interesting characters. Catherine in particular reminds me of Moira Queen at her manipulative best/worst.

The Mother of Dragons approves.

Oh, and one more thing: I promise I'm not trying to be a Debbie Downer, but is anyone else a little overwhelmed by the sheer amount of characters in this? I don't know what the run-time is going to be, but we've got to find room for: Protagonists Rey, Finn and Poe Second Tier Characters C3-PO, R2-D2, BB8, Chewy, Rose, Connix (Billie Lourd)... is Maz Kanata coming back? Legacy Characters Leia, Lando, the Emperor, and Luke in some capacity Brand New Characters Jannah, Keri Russell, Dominic Monagham, Richard E. Grant, Matt Smith - and isn't there a new little droid? Villains Kylo and Hux and the Knights of Ren (the last of which we don't know anything about). That's a staggering amount of people to juggle, and it's hard not to think someone isn't going to get shortchanged. (Finn. It's going to be Finn).

I know it's too early to speculate in any great detail, but is anyone else confused by the creative decision to bring back the Emperor? I mean, why go to all the trouble of positioning Kylo Ren as the trilogy's Big Bad by having him kill Snoke, only to bring in yet another Dark Lord who may-or-may-not have been pulling everyone's strings the whole time. Why not just start with the Emperor? Or just LET Kylo be the genocidal autocrat he's so clearly desperate to be. On that note, why should I get excited at the thought of Rey (or Kylo) fighting the Emperor? Kylo is obsessed with Vader, and Rey's main nemesis is Kylo. What the hell does Palpatine have to do with anything set up in the previous two movies? Hopefully Ole' Sheev's appearance will just comprise of a cameo designed to mess with Rey's head, but can someone please assure me we're not going to get ANOTHER reiteration of the Throne Room scene in which the Emperor pits Vader/Kylo against Rey/Luke, a scenario which was already done (and deliberately subverted) in TLJ. Because I get the sinking feeling his reappearance is just a way to give Kylo yet another opportunity to "redeem" himself. And honestly, words can't express how uninterested I am in Kylo redemption at this stage. He's been offered two olive branches by the good guys and rejected both of them. Enough already.

I did! I totally forgot about Lena! (Geez, and I love Katie McGrath...)

Late to the party and haven't read thread, so excuse me if I repeat anything... I liked it, though pilots are always a bit rough. They have to set the tone, introduce the characters, establish relationships, story-arcs, etc. It did the job. Lots of things seeded that'll be explored later in the season; mainly the disappearance of Bruce/Batman, the identity of Alice as Beth, and the inevitable death of Sophie's husband in such a way that she'll end up blaming Batwoman, who will be guilt-ridden over not saving him and compromised by her feelings for Sophie - hey, this writes itself. I appreciated that so many of the cast are women: the protagonist, the villain, the stepsister, the step mum, the love interest... That's the thing that kinda bugs me about Supergirl: there's really only Kara and Alex in the main cast (and more recently, Nia) amidst a slew of male characters. Female relationships are just as important as female protagonists, and to do that you need more than one. Of course, they compensate by giving our female protagonist Daddy Issues. *sigh* Re: Batman. You know, if a vigilante who regularly fights master criminals suddenly and mysteriously goes missing, I think it would be very safe to assume he's dead. Of course, he's NOT, but in-universe, they definitely wouldn't have been saying he's "missing" or that he's "abandoned Gotham." He's dead, guys. (Except not). I think I'm going to enjoy Mary, especially since she's channeling Bruce: a flippant, superficial exterior hiding deeper altruistic motives.

Well, I stand corrected. I'm glad it worked for people, but I still wish they'd pulled a Captain Marvel with Natasha and just left her romance-free. She already had a great atonement/found family arc.

I'm surprised no one has mentioned all the MCU films, which are consistently terrible at a) villains, and b) romances. They got better with the former, but not the latter. Tony/Pepper are easily the best of the bunch, followed by Steve/Peggy (though I know people preferred them as "ships in the night" that were tragically parted; a dynamic that was upended with the conclusion of Endgame). Gamora/Peter also seem to be reasonably popular, though Peter's man-child persona exhausts and irritates me. Peter/MJ? Cute, I guess. But everyone else... Thor/Jane? Meh. Scott/Hope? Meh. T'Challa/Nakia? Meh. Wanda/Vision? Meh. Strange/Rachel McAdams? Meh. Does anyone even remember Bruce/Betty? There's nothing overtly bad about any of them, they're just profoundly uninteresting. And of course, Natasha/Bruce, the most inexplicable and out-of-nowhere ship of the entire franchise. It's telling that after Joss Whedon introduced it, the Russo Brothers/Taika Waititi barely acknowledged it in subsequent films. No one cared, not the writers, not the actors, and not the audience.

Long time lurker: I was pretty happy with this. It reminded me a lot of the finale of "Orphan Black" in that the bad guy wasn't that interesting and so got taken out relatively quickly so the finale could concentrate on the dynamics of the cast and their final send-off. In hindsight, this season spent WAY too much time on the prison ship; time that could have been spent with our supporting cast of characters. Surely Pree, Fancy, the Warden and Turin could have been given something to do, especially after all the trouble it took to get them de-brainwashed by the rain. That goes ditto for Jaq, especially if you look at his involvement in the show as a whole. Was he even that necessary? What exactly was his purpose? To be a permanent host-body for the Lady? (That's more of a rhetorical question, since I found most of the plot on this show to be impenetrable. The Green? The Hullen? I just went with it). Pip's return was the world's weirdest asspull, but hey - whatever. It made Zeph happy. Dutch and Johnny's goodbye was lovely, and like others have said, it was an elegant way of splitting the team up without it being for good. As he said, there's always going to be more to do, and this demonstrated more adventures are to come, together and as individuals. All things considered, it was an interesting choice to focus more on Dutch/Khylen - and I loved the return of the red box with the human Lady: only this time she gets a doll. So many implications there, largely to do with Dutch giving her a chance to be someone she never was. Despite what she said ("Khylen taught me never to kill what I need") the doll made it clear this was Dutch at her most merciful. Delle Seyah Kendry gets away scott-free. Not sure how I feel about that, but then "redemption equals death" is a pretty lazy trope these days. Pree/Gared made it to the finish line! I had faith in this show given its track record, but still - too many writers/showrunners just can't resist killing off one half of a gay couple. One little touch I liked that some may have missed: Johnny says he's going to find Clara. Nice to hear her namedropped, even though she and her cohorts were probably the biggest dropped thread of the show. Never much cared about Dutch/D'avin as a couple, but hey - they're happy, so I'm happy. Gonna miss this crazy little show.

I don't mind the presence of Ewoks in Return of the Jedi - in fact, I kinda love them. Yes, Wookies would have been a million times better (which was the original plan) but I love the idea of the Empire totally underestimating the "primitive" aliens species they thought they could so effortlessly subjugate, not to mention the idea of the Rebel Alliance calling on the natural world to combat Imperial science (they did something similar at the end of Star Wars Rebels, when the characters included giant bats/wolves on the planet of Lothal into their battle strategies). And yeah, I've heard the complaints that the Rebels took advantage of the Ewoks in a sort of "superior colonizers co-opt primitive savages to fight their battles" kind of way, but not only is that a bit of a stretch, but the film itself makes it VERY clear that the Ewoks are in this of their own volition after hearing C3-PO's dramatic retelling of the gang's adventures. That was such a great scene, and along with Leia's kindness towards Wicket, establishes why the Ewoks would chose to throw their lot in with the Rebels. Oh, and that moment when the two Ewoks get hit, and one gets up and nudges his friend as if to say "let's go!", only to realize that he's dead? Gets me every time. I'm a sap.

And if you go further back, there are clearly roots in Greek mythology, specifically in Eris, the goddess of Strife, who threw the Golden Apple engraved with "for the fairest" into the gathering of goddesses, which kick-started a chain reaction that led straight to the Trojan War. Why'd she do it? Because she wasn't invited to a wedding. And honestly, villains who do things for petty reasons are somehow more horrifying than the ones with tragic backstories, because you can't understand them, nor win with them no matter what you do. That the Ancient Greeks had a handle on "some people are just assholes" while modern day writers are obsessed with everyone having a sad childhood is as tedious as it is depressing. Which is to say, I have negative-levels of interest in the forthcoming Joker movie.

It's my coping mechanism. I have to mock it or else be permanently enraged...

Well, obviously Rey heard some bells which triggered her crazy Sith genes.

I was delighted that Sansa was immune to Dany's charms and unimpressed with the dragons, I was just hoping that it would eventually lead to a grudging two-way respect between the two women instead of...what actually ended up happening.

Sansa will never be as needlessly cruel and vindictive as Cersei (I don't think ANYONE could ever be), but it's also naive to think she didn't pick up a LITTLE on some of Cersei's mentality that outsiders were not to be trusted. The problem is that the show ends right when Sansa's reign begins, so what kind of queen she'll be is largely left up to our own imaginations. Queen of the North is a VERY different gig from Lady of Winterfell. Here's a hypothetical: for the sake of peace and an important alliance, a Northern Lord wants to marry a much younger girl from another House. Queen Sansa knows the strategic importance of the match, all of her male counsellors are encouraging her to give her blessing, and granting this lord the boon of a young bride means he owes her a favour. But the girl in question really, really doesn't want to marry this man, who is twice her age, not very attractive, and who clearly has mercenary motivations. She's come to beg Sansa to let her off the hook. So, does Queen Sansa make the girl go through with the marriage? Or does she risk the ire of all the men around her by denying social tradition, ignoring their perfectly reasonable request, and siding with the girl for no other reason but to rescue her from what Sansa had to go through? What version of Sansa did D&D leave us with? The one who says yes to this scenario, or the one who says no? (This is largely rhetorical BTW, I'm just trying to illustrate the fact that we're left with no real understanding about what kind of ruler Sansa is going to be. In comparison, Cersei would have clearly made the girl go through with it, and relished her despair. On the other hand, Dany of the first eight-and-a-half seasons, never would have done so - because she explicitly empathized with women in this position, and had the hard power (dragons) to ensure no one could undermine her decision. When it comes to Sansa, I honestly can't see which way she would have gone).

I'll give em this: the Duffer Brothers know how to do a finale. In all, this was a solid, exciting, amusing season of entertainment, very much like an eight-hour movie in its three-act structure with very little flab. There were a couple of loose ends (why were the Flayed eating chemicals? And what was the green goo in the Russian compound? Did Nancy ever write up the story for another newspaper?) a few characters/dynamics that were neglected (poor Jonathan; even his big moment in doing impromptu surgery was a failure) and a lack of proper closure (we really needed to see the community grieving for the missing Flayed - let's not forget there was a little boy among them - , not to mention the reaction of Billy's father to his son's death) but hey - it was all good. That said, I wasn't quite as captivated with season three as I was the previous two. On reflection, I think it's because there was no obvious main character or key relationship. The first two seasons it was Eleven/Mike and then Eleven/Hopper. Here the most important dynamics were Eleven/Mike/Max, Hopper/Joyce and Steve/Robin, with everyone else spread a little thinly across the plate. So for the first time in the show's progression, this was truly an ensemble piece - and yet without a protagonist it did feel a little center-less. As such, I was never truly moved in the way I have been previously: Mike and Eleven's emotional reunion after a year apart is still the highest bar the show has set for itself. Other observations: For the comments on Winona's frumpy appearance: I have no doubt that she'll get to glam up when she and Hopper finally get to Enzo's. What's an eighties-based TV show without a female lead getting the "beautiful all along" transformation scene? I didn't quite buy the calmness with which Mike and Eleven allowed themselves to be separated. Yes, a big theme of this season was growing up, and yes, the two needed to be less co-dependent, but after everything they've been through and the times they've been forcibly apart, they would NOT have handled this well. As Murray said: shared trauma. That said, I'm interested in seeing Will and Jonathan as brothers to Eleven. Will/El is a dynamic I was looking forward to this season, and didn't get much of, even though they have so much in common. Nice of the air ducts to magically expand themselves to accommodate Murray when it was a big plot-point that only a child Erica's size could fit (okay, so Erica's ducts were in the ceiling and Murray's were in the floor, so maybe that accounted for the difference. BUT STILL). The Mayor was a bit of a pointless character; largely there to get Cary Elwes in the cast - but hey, I said the same thing about Billy last season, so maybe he'll be back next time. I have no real opinion over the Robin/Steve not!ship, only that it clears the way for the potential ship I'm really interested in: Steve/Kali. DON'T roll your eyes. Just THINK about it for a minute... On that note, I hope that season four really expands itself outside of Hawkins. Obviously we're not done with the Russia plot yet, the Byers have relocated, and it strikes me as interesting that no one visited the Upside Down this season. More than this, I want to know more about El's childhood, her mother, the government facility and the other subjects there. She's Eleven and Kali is Eight, that leaves at least nine other lost brothers and sisters...

So Erica finds the weapon and Dustin is the one who gets to use it? Urgh. (Sorry, still salty about the time I ran and grabbed the fire extinguisher and some douche yanked it out of my hands because he just COULD NOT allow a woman to save the day). I liked the Mike/Max argument simply because I could see both sides. Mike is right: she's been working overtime lately, and Max is right: El knows her own limits. Also, glad she got called out over spying on the boys. Not cool, girls. Trying to sell Robin as a loser nerd at high school doesn't work when she's clearly the daughter of Uma Thurman and Ethan Hawke. That said, she's just the latest in a VERY long line of stunners that films/TV tries to pass off as pathetic losers. Not buying that Joyce and Hopper wouldn't immediately be high-tailing it to Hawkins to reach the kids - heck, the fact they've spent so much time away from El and Will this season is a little hard to fathom. All these episodes are starting to blur, so maybe this was the last episode, but I liked seeing Lucas distract Max with a "can you catch this in your mouth?" competition to give Mike a chance to talk to El. That's probably the smoothest we've ever seen Lucas. Loved that Erica believed everything Dustin told her about the Upside Down... but not that her brother was involved.

After complaining about it last episode, this one granted my wish: two of the groups team up! And the immediately split up again at the hospital. Ah well. This was a bit of a step-down after the last episode, as everyone regroups and shares information, and the action sequences at the hospital weren't as exciting as those at the sauna/air ducts. Jonathan should have been seriously injured by the beating he took, not wandering around. Glad both Joyce and Nancy got vindicated by circumstances, and the dudes who kept talking over them acknowledged as such. The goop is disgusting.

As they say: shit got real. This was definitely the best episode so far, and I loved the intercutting between all the secret plans that were initially going pretty well: Dustin/Steve/Robin/Erica at the mall, Nancy at the hospital and the rest of the gang at the swimming pool. The staredown between Eleven/Max and whatever's in Billy was intense and frightening, so kudos to Dacre: you could really see something cold and cruel staring out of him (one that's much crueller than Billy at the best of times). Also, I'm glad the show has finally justified Billy's existence. Last season he seemed so extraneous - just an eighties Stephen King bully for the sake of having an eighties Stephen King bully. Liked Will stepping up and taking charge of the operation, though I'd dearly love to see some more interaction between him and Eleven. They're the most scarred and traumatized of all the kids, and they have so much in common (not to mention a bit of competition over Mike) so I'd like to see that potential mined. Erica reminds me of Lyanna Mormont in Game of Thrones: wildly popular in her first appearance, leading to the show bumping up her appearances, after which she's immediately disliked by audiences. I enjoyed her in this episode - girl knows how get the best out of a situation. "I die, you die," was adorable, but Steve's nonchalant reaction was amusing: it was such an over-the-top pre-teen thing to say that you can really only shrug it off. As someone with claustrophobia, I was wincing at Erica's air duct crawl and the room suddenly being an elevator. *shudder* Oh, and Mrs Wheeler finally gets to be a mother to one of her children! That was lovely, and you could see the regret in her face when she thinks of her own life choices. I hope it works out and Nancy DOES sell the story to a much bigger newspaper.

Everyone's a detective! It was mentioned in the thread for the last episode, but this can now be considered the show's formula: characters are separated into different groups and seemingly disparate storylines that eventually converge as the finale approaches. It's a formula that works, so I can understand why they don't want to mess with it, but at the same time, I'm feeling the separation a bit more this time around. A little more of the characters weaving in and out of each other's subplots would go a long way, even if it was just acknowledging each other on the way to the next plot-point. I mean, it's hilarious to me that Mike, Nancy and Mrs Wheeler are all leads, all belong to the same family, and never interact with each other. Likewise, is Dustin really going to spend all his time hanging out with Steve and not his friends? I can't complain too much though - I mean, at least they've got the dynamics right: Steve/Dustin/Robin chemistry is fantastic, so is the Max/Eleven friendship (I remember well that female friendships in eighties movies were never served particularly well, if they existed at all). The Lucas/Mike/Will stuff is incredibly poignant, as it makes sense that Will wants to recapture his childhood: partly due to PTSD, partly due to increasing hints that he might be gay, partly due to being the inevitable friend in any group who doesn't want to grow up as quickly as the others. (I was that kid). That leaves Nancy/Jonathan... well, let's be honest, the show has always struggled with these two a little bit. Possibly because they only ever get to interact with each other. What would happen if they actually got to talk to their siblings? Nancy/El would be fun. Jonathan/Steve has potential given their former rivalry. I love you Joyce, but you owed Hopper an apology for standing him up. Heck, the fact she didn't even register the fact that she's ditched him was a bit much.

I haven't read the rest of the posts yet, so apologies if I repeat anything. During the hiatus and after seeing the first trailer, I was actually a little concerned about what they would do with Eleven/Max. I definitely wanted the two girls to be friends with each other, but I also wanted there to be a "sizing each other up" period given their cool reception at the end of season two. I was afraid the writing would gloss over their initial awkwardness and leap straight to "besties at the mall". So I'm pretty happy with what we got here: it's clear that in the year that passed the two have been in each other's orbit without really interacting one-on-one, and that El's insecurity over Max/Mike has (obviously) passed. When El approaches Max it's as a girl with a genuine lack of understanding over what it means to be a girl, and Max rose to the occasion with a girl's day out. Too often female relationships are depicted as either Super Best Friends Forever or I Immediately and Unequivocally Hate You (*side-eyes the last season of Game of Thrones*) and don't take into account the HUGE spectrum of feelings and attitudes that can exist between women. Just like, you know, dudes. So basically: nicely done, Duffer Brothers. The wedge that Hopper has put between Mike/Eleven is annoying - yes, I get that he's concerned, and yes, they were definitely being obnoxious, and yes, it's very good that El is interacting with other people (ie Max). But there's nothing you can do about teens in the throes of first love but batten down the hatches and wait it out. Scaring Mike into lying to El? Is just gonna backfire. That said, what exactly is the Eleven situation? Because she was a little freaked out at going to the mall ("so many people"), and when they ran into Mike he said that she shouldn't be there. So... is she still being kept hidden at the cabin? Clearly she's not going to school, so where's her education coming from? Hasn't she been legally adopted by Hopper? Are they planning to integrate her into society at some point? I just don't know what the Plan is here - and honestly, if Hopper is that concerned about Mike/El spending every waking moment together, he should enroll her at the local school. Maya Hawke fits in nicely - I saw her first in last year's Little Women (the BBC version) in which she instantly became my favourite Jo March. (Sorry Winona).

First episode down! This was pretty much designed to reintroduce the characters and reset the board, but there was some good stuff in here too. I see Mike/Eleven have made the natural leap from puppy love to "we're obsessed with each other" love, as per any pre-teen in the throes of first love. It was inevitable really, though I have some mixed feelings, especially with Hopper's dad panic playing out in the background. Still, I like that there's a bit of a custody battle for El (or father/boyfriend/daughter love triangle) going on; at the end of season two Mike was pissed that Hopper kept El a secret from him, so this very much feels like Mike asserting himself as alpha male (god I hate that term, but that was totally what was going on). Of course, this backfired hilariously. I'd like a better understanding of how Will fits into this new friend dynamic. He obviously wants to go back to the good old days, so how does he feel about Max and El? Is he friends with them outside the group? Or does he think of them as interlopers? Looks like Joyce/Hopper is gonna happen. Thankfully Karen/Billy isn't... at least not yet. That said, I want her to have some fun, and the flirting is fun to watch, but ultimately Billy is such a sleaze (and possibly a vessel for some Mind Flayer action). I've no idea how the Russian angle is going to play into all this, but we'll see...

All these big moments are great, but for me what really made it was the little ones: Ygritte sparing Gilly's life and signalling her to be quiet despite having no idea who she was. No one will ever know, but that act of mercy paid off considering Gilly made it to the end. Sansa and Jon's reunion. We knew the Starklings would reunite at some point, but did anyone think that Jon/Sansa would be first? Or that the two characters that had the LEAST to do with each other would channel such pure emotion at seeing each other again? Somehow the fact that they were the most unlikely Stark pairing when it came to audience investment was what made it so powerful. Missandei's wicked little smile just before Dany unleashes the Unsullied and Drogo on the slavers. Also her quiet, dignified defense of Dany in the crypts after the Two Smartest People Ever don't even notice her sitting right there next to them. The Hound burying the father/daughter he robbed and saying: "I'm sorry you're dead." At Hardhome, that vile Thenn realizing there was a bigger picture at work and sacrificing himself to the White Walker to buy time for Jon to get the dragonglass. Jorah and Lyanna getting a moment before the battle. I had given up on the writers remembering they were cousins, and yet there it was. The nameless, silent wife (or widow) of Craster that stabbed Karl in the back, saving Jon's life in the process. Unnamed Dornish Prince's obvious boredom at the Council Meeting. Hats off to that actor; they gave him nothing to work with and yet is there any doubt that the Dornish uprising is imminent? And on a wider note, anything between Dany/Jorah. To me, they comprised the most beautiful love story on the show.

So I've been a long-time lurker on the GoT boards, and a week having passed since the finale, I really, really have to just vent a little, because my frustration still hasn't gone away. First of all, I was always a Sansa fan - even back in season one. My absolute favourite character arc is "spoiled brat gets exposed to the real world and because a wiser, more compassionate person because of it" (for example, Cordelia Chase in Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Prince Arthur in Merlin). Sansa's arc was clearly a little harsher than most, but the idea of a young woman going through hell but realizing "if I am queen, I will make them love me" was totally my jam. But looking back, this trajectory in Sansa's story got botched from the moment D&D decided to give her Jeyne Poole's storyline, turning her into a rape/trauma victim instead of whatever Martin has planned for her (which I'm certain involves her becoming more of a negotiator/diplomat/spy). She was always going to come out of this a colder, more closed-off person (and don't get me started on her crediting her strength to the abuse she suffered. Gross). Still, they had time to course-correct...and didn't. I thought Dany's story-arc this season was ghastly, but it was somehow Sansa's that really made me angry. I waited nine years to see fully-formed Sansa as a master politician, having learned manipulation from Littlefinger, flattery/courtesy from Margaery, cunning from Tyrion and (most importantly) what NOT to do from Cersei, and yet almost every power-play she made this season was a rookie move that works out in her favour due to authorial fiat. For instance, I don't have a problem with her worrying about food supplies, but why would she announce these concerns to the room, which only a) undermines the King, b) alienates an important ally, and c) brings more stress and worry to a situation that is already on the brink of the literal apocalypse? (She was supposed to LEARN from Littlefinger, not BECOME him, and this just felt like his brand of pointless chaos-sowing nonsense). Then she decides to break her vow to Jon and spill the beans on his parentage, which only puts him in extreme danger from a woman she admits she's frightened of (and makes those red leaves on her coronation dress rather hypocritical considering she broke the vow she made under the weirwood tree). Again, only authorial fiat protects Jon from dying immediately at Grey Worm's hands once the fallout of the secret's exposure runs its course, and in the end he's exiled - costing her one of her most loyal allies. (Cos seriously, that boy is outta there. He ain't coming back). And finally, she gets independence for the North, not through intrigue or force or clever politicking, but because she ... hoo boy ... just ASKS her brother the king for it. In front of all the other delegates of the Seven Kingdoms. Who are ... totally cool with that? (And again, the direwolf crown she wears is a pretty big indicator that this isn't Northern Independence, it's the North under Stark rule). As others have pointed out, they needed Arya to shill her as "the smartest person I've ever met" to guide the audience into accepting she was right about everything, because D&D also required her to make some of the worst political/leadership moves EVER in order to push their story in the direction they wanted it to go. And it would one thing if I believed (for example) that she deliberately pushed Jon into harm's way in order to claim queenship for herself, but that obviously wasn't what D&D were going for. The culmination of her story certainly should have been her as ruler of the North/Winterfell in some capacity (I've foreseen that for YEARS, and would have bet money on it), but D&D clearly had no idea how to get her to that point in a way that made sense, and are obviously oblivious to how vulnerable a position they've left her in. First of all, she's lost all her most important allies - Arya, Brienne and Jon (that last one due to her own machinations). There was not a single familiar face at her coronation, and of the remaining Northern Houses we DO know of, the Mormonts are dead, the Umbers are dead, the Glovers are either dead or disloyal, and Alys Karstark surely isn't a fan considering Sansa wanted to have her disinherited a few seasons back. Likewise, (as I mentioned above) the fact she's "won" Northern independence through the obvious favouritism of her brother only paints a giant target on her back (especially when she antagonized Yara Greyjoy at the council meeting. Um, maybe don't piss off the pirate-queen who knows Northern forces are severely depleted and no longer has any reason to stop raiding and pillaging as per her agreement with the now-dead Daenerys?) Does anyone doubt that Dornish and Ironborn uprisings aren't imminent as a direct result of watching Sansa just get handed independence by a family member? Finally (and this is especially strange since she herself pointed out Bran's inability to have children is a problem), it seemed pretty clear to me in her body language and clothing choices throughout this season that Sansa has no intention of getting married or (subsequently) bearing children. And I don't blame her for one second given what she's been through, but it's also a big problem when you live in a patriarchal system where power flows through primogeniture. Best case scenario, she's going to be badgered incessantly by a bunch of old men that she has to get married and produce children ASAP, ESPECIALLY after a devastating war that's just ravaged the population. They'll want stability and they'll want an heir, and that means Sansa will either eventually be pressured into another political match, or be forced to name a male heir (like Queen Elizabeth I did with King James) and resign herself to the end of the Stark line. Sounds like fun. Because of course, we just spent eight seasons being told that anyone who reaches for power and crowns themselves king/queen is doomed to either death or misery. That has been the fate of every single other ruling monarch featured on this show, so I'm still struggling to see how this is a "happy" ending for Sansa: a queen with no strong allies, a bunch of pissed-off neighbours, and no desire to marry/have children despite this being a job requirement. TL;DR I am not a Sansa hater, but a disappointed lover. So much more care and thought should have gone into all of this, and I've spent the last week feeling cognitive dissonance at the fact so many other fans seem to be totally delighted with this ending for her. The coronation scene was gorgeous - so gorgeous in fact that I'm pretty sure D&D hoped to wave it around like a flag to distract us from the fact Sansa is sitting on a powder-keg and has more or less lit the fuse herself. The wheel turns on, I suppose.

Fasten your tin-hat, because I've got a theory! Reading between the lines of that Vanity Fair article, I'm going to go out on a limb and say: Kylo murdered Rey's parents. First of all, JJ Abrams has already said that there's more to Rey's backstory than has been revealed. I don't think he'll retcon Johnson's decision to make her a nobody, but I do think Kylo was lying when he said they sold Rey for drinking money. It was a half-truth designed to make her join the Dark Side. In watching TFA, it's painfully clear that JJ originally meant for Rey and Kylo to have met previously. His "what GIRL?" response to hearing that the droid had escaped with a girl, to Rey's Force abilities growing stronger in his presence all pointed to her having been in Luke's Academy as a child, only to escape the massacre and forget the trauma (explaining why her powers came back to her so strongly after they re-met). Heck, in the fim's novelization, Kylo actually says: "so it IS you," when she pulls the lightsabre out of his reach. Of course, that theory went kaput with TLJ, BUT JJ could still work with Johnson's idea that Rey was born with preternatural Force abilities to balance out Kylo (which is a stupid idea, but we're stuck with it now). In which case, if Snoke and Kylo knew that such a person would come along, it makes sense that they would try to find her and kill her as a child. Then there's Rey's vision, which included the Knights of Ren and Kylo seemingly killing this random guy: What if that's Rey's father? And apparently this scene made another appearance in the footage at the latest Star Wars convention, suggesting it's important. If you look at the actual quotes from Adam Driver and Daisy Ridley in the article about their "maybe-bond" and that it "runs deeper than expected" (the writer tries to crouch it in romantic terms, but I still seriously doubt that Disney is going to hook up a teenage girl with the grown Space Nazi that's been terrorizing her for the past two movies) then it could be referring to this shared history in which Kylo and the KoR deliberately went out killing Jedi apprentices - including Rey's parents, who presumably managed to hide her on Jakku. Finally, there's an emphasis on parents in both actors' quotes. I roll my eyes at the idea that we're apparently meant to feel sorry for Kylo for having the coolest people in the galaxy as his mother and father, but this is the second time Daisy has made the claim that Rey is furious at Kylo for having had a loving family and then throwing them away, which is interesting. If the original trilogy had as its big twist the fact that the murderer of Luke's father was actually his true father, then there's a nice symmetry in Rey realizing that her great nemesis put her on the path she's on by hunting down and killing her parents. Also, there was a rumour a while back that It fits together, but then I've been wrong before. And "subverting audience expectations" seems to be everyone's MO these days, whether or not it actually makes sense.