stagmania

Why on earth should Dany care about any of this? The Starks have been awful to her, but she’s supposed to screw herself over to spare their tender feelings about their dead dad? There’s never been any indication that any of them care whether Ned cheated on his wife once. Jon’s bastard status doesn’t even matter - he was named King in the North. People come up with the thinnest excuses to hate on Dany, honestly.

I like the new theory better than Dany just straight dying and Jon going to the Wall. At least if he gives her the kiss of life there will have been some point to his resurrection.

Just peaked at twitter and whoo boy. “Dany should burn them all” appears to be the overwhelming sentiment. Definitely a deliberate callback, especially in the context of Dany trying to negotiate with Cersei in good faith. Cersei is the real Mad Queen here, but apparently the show doesn’t see it that way???

Viewing Dany as the villain in this scenario requires the characters and audience to be extremely hypocritical. I won’t say I can’t believe it, because I absolutely can, but the optics of having: - the only black woman in the story brutally murdered - the main woman protagonist go crazy and be put down by the hero - the entire ruling council in the end be comprised of white men who failed to do anything significant to win these wars or in fact made many mistakes with no consequences is terrible. Absolutely fucking terrible. The instinct to let D&D off the hook for their horrible writing and try to lay it on GRRM is a strange one. This is their show, they are responsible for it. Same. If it actually plays out this way, I don’t know how they make her the villain except to have her act insane. Completely agree with this. I think there is a universe in which they could have done the final few seasons properly to develop the relationships and set up this final story. But it’s not the one we’re living in.

It’s not about Missandei’s death alone. It’s about the leaks tied to it - that this will precipitate Dany losing it, everyone will betray her and Jon will ultimately kill her. If you go back and watch the way Dany and her story were written in the middle seasons, it’s truly unfathomable that this is where they were steering her. I don’t blame Dany fans at all for being upset that she goes out like that.

Yes, exactly this. I can deal with a sad ending that makes sense and feels like a true culmination of eight seasons of story. But that's not what these leaks are - it's just random shock value, with a million loose ends in the story that will apparently never be addressed. Seriously, what is the point of Jon's parentage and resurrection arc? Why did they build a whole theme around Dany wanting to break the wheel? What has been the point of Tyrion's complete failure as a Hand?

Well, catching up on the last few days of leaks has been thoroughly depressing. But I'm glad I know, because it would be so much worse to still be holding out hope for a decent ending. Arya has always been my favorite and it looks like she's my only hope.

I wouldn't be surprised if we get no further resolution on their relationship. I think the knighting scene was the culmination of their relationship arc, and now the show will turn its attention to resolving Jaime and Cersei's storyline. I expect that to end tragically (and if these spoilers are remotely true, with a total regression of Jaime's character), and don't think there's likely to be space for anything else good to happen for Jaime and Brienne. The small council list is one of the main things that make me think these spoilers are fake. It reads like a list of someone's favorite characters, not a group that would conceivably rule. Tyrion's whole arc the last few seasons has been about sucking at this job, Sam is kind of useless on strategy and tactics, and Bronn is an amoral sell sword. Davos is the only name on that council that makes any kind of sense. Thanks for this reminder. It's been so long since I read the books, I forget how differently Dany is written in them. Her show portrayal is much more focused on the bombastic conqueror stuff. I agree that Dany breaking the wheel would be a much more satisfying ending to her story for the last eight years. When you go back and rewatch seasons 3 and 4 and look at the way they wrote her then, it's bonkers to think that they were steering toward her going crazy and being killed by Jon. Part of me is hoping that all the Mad Queen teases are just a big red herring. People keep saying this and I don't agree at all. It's on D&D - it's their responsibility to tell the story adequately so that the ending makes sense, or change the ending to fit the story they have actually told. They can't just say "oh well GRRM says this happens so we'll tack it on even though it doesn't fit the show version of the characters" and call that an excuse. And this right here is why I'm never confident about the story they're telling. Every interview with and about D&D indicates that their primary focus is shocking the audience - they don't care if their plot machinations make any narrative sense or undercut characterization. They ignored the entire theme of the story and the message they've been sending to the audience for eight years because they thought it would be more surprising to quickly dispatch the existential threat to humanity and end on Cersei.

That doesn't at all comport with Melisandre being the one to guide her in this episode, and would be an example of terrible writing.

This is hugely disappointing. They braced us for feature length episodes - why did they edit them down so much and leave out really compelling, character-defining stuff like this?

Parts of this sound credible (I could see them having Dany go Mad Queen after Cersei kills Missandei and her remaining advisors betray her), and parts sound ludicrous (Jon kills Dany and takes the black - that would be a horrible culmination of his arc). And why would anyone want creepy Bran as King? I hope it's not true, because this would be major character regression for almost everyone.

I completely agree with this and I keep thinking how differently this might have played if they’d set it up properly. All we needed was a scene in ep 2 with Jon and Arya where Jon comes to understand what she has become, they talk about how the NK could possibly be killed and his worry that he won’t be able to do it, and maybe just have an implication that they have a backup plan between the two of them. Then we’ve connected Arya and Jon back together more strongly, Arya has the info she needs to make this play, and it’s more of a shared fulfillment of the prophecy/both their arcs while still giving Arya the ultimate hero moment. It would’ve made so much more sense.

This is what they were going for, but they didn't do the work to set it up at all. Arya doesn't know how the Night King was created and the team had no idea how to kill him - so she just happened to get lucky in her Hail Mary attempt by stabbing him in exactly the right place with exactly the right weapon. Then the audience had to google for interviews and Wikis afterward to make sense of it. Extremely unsatisfying, IMO. Agree with your take on Sansa heading down to the crypts. I would have liked to see her saying something to her people here, too, rather than just snarking at Tyrion and offending Missandei. But for me the real disappointment was her running and hiding when the dead burst into the crypt, leaving them to die and not even attempting to make use of the weapon Arya gave her. At the end it looked like she might finally do something, but that went nowhere. For all her distrust and dislike of Dany, who was the one of the two of them who stood and fought for the North? She didn't need to become a warrior all of a sudden, but some attempt to protect anyone would have been nice. Arya is not remotely a Mary Sue, and it's honestly enraging that people are claiming she is. We have watched Arya train to become an assassin for 8 seasons! We have watched her suffer, survive tragedy, grow cold and hard, lose touch with her humanity, slaughter dozens, and then finally reconnect with her life and start to find her way back. Now we see her putting her hard won skills to use to save her brother and her home. There's a lot I didn't like about this episode, but Arya completing her flawed, complicated hero's journey in this way makes perfect sense.

I've been stewing on the episode today and the more I think about it, the less I like the details and the resolution to the AOTD/NK plot. Things that are bugging me most: The entire idea that the AOTD was defeated the space of an hour or two. "The Long Night" was not even one full night, whereas many historical battles between mere humans last days or weeks. We are never going to understand anything more about the NK, his motives, or how on earth he planned this attack for a thousand years only to go down so easy, by a single stab to the body (when another dragon-based weapon didn't work, for no reason they bothered to explain). Bran was completely useless. Like, what has been the point of any of his arc? Why didn't he use any of his powers to help? Jon was sidelined in a way that felt unsatisfying and out of step with him having a Big Destiny. I wish they had removed him from the fight more decisively, like with a major injury, rather than just having him make a few awkward aborted attempts to get to the NK. Why did Ghost disappear with the Dothraki (but apparently survived?). Why wasn't he fighting by Jon's side when he was on the ground? Everything in the crypts was extremely underwhelming. Where was Sansa's leadership? Why was the attack of the crypt corpses so lame? All the major characters just hid in a corner and listened to little kids get slaughtered, none of them tried to stand and fight or help each other. There needed to be WAY more deaths. This is the conflict they've been building to for a decade - and only a few second tier characters died, and not even the most popular ones. And it seemed like a huge missed opportunity not to have any characters confronted with the zombie version of a loved one. The way this was written, Cersei was completely justified in letting the North handle the AOTD without her army, and will suffer no apparent consequences for refusing to help. There were parts of this episode I really liked - Arya's whole arc, Dany actively fighting on both dragonback and the ground, Brienne and Jaime fighting together - but on the whole, I'm going to call this one a massive letdown.

It makes no sense that dragon fire doesn’t work on the Night King but a Valyrian steel dagger does. Valyrian steel is special because it’s forged with dragon fire!

I loved that ending in the moment but I’m sitting here digesting and I do not at all like that the Night King went down that easy. And now Cersei gets to be the final big bad and we’re going to go back to fighting over the Iron Throne. From an epic existential battle for the living to petty infighting over who gets to rule who. It feels anticlimactic.

NOT TODAY BITCH So ...Arya is the Prince Who Was Promised???

That WW can't cross water was the entire conceit of the episode where they went on the wight-capturing mission. Dany had to get there to save them before the water re-froze. I think Dany's line about his being a male heir was more about her own issues around being a female ruler and getting people to take that seriously. She mentioned it in her conversation with Sansa earlier in the episode. So his gender is immaterial re: the line of succession, but it kind of adds insult to injury for her to believe she'll be cast aside for a male leader.

I thought it was a really obvious missing beat in that Dany/Jon scene. He says he knows it's true - and then doesn't say anything else. Would have been a very natural time to point out some of his Targaryen traits that they've both seen. I didn't think it was weird she was surprised - Sansa was being kind of inconsistent here. Last week she was saying trusting Cersei is foolish and dunking on Tyrion for being dumb; this week she was praising Tyrion's intelligence and easily accepting that they should trust Cersei's twin. I don't blame Dany for not being able to get a read on her.

I didn’t read it as romantic, but I do think her response was over the top. She’s guarded and reserved with everyone now and I didn’t really buy that outburst of emotion just for Theon, especially in front of Dany. I’m honestly so offended about the way they’re treating Ghost. He hasn’t been seen since early season 6. Jon never even mentions him, we didn’t get to see them reunite, and now he’s just randomly in the background? They have never understood or done justice to the direwolves. If by “right reasons” you mean genuine romantic interest, then no, I don’t think Arya did. But that actually made it more believable to me. Arya has been closed off from softer emotions, but I bought her wanting to have this adult experience before dying. She left her childhood behind in every other way so long ago.

Brienne being knighted by Jaime was about 10x more romantic than Arya and Gendry’s sex scene. Glad Jon told Dany who he is relatively quickly. Between that and Sansa drawing a line in the sand about retaining Northern independence she has a lot to take in and some big decisions to make about what kind of ruler she wants to be.

Interesting interview - I like that he admits Sam is manipulative. I think most of the audience views Sam as a big fluffy puppy, but there's an edge there, and he's disregarded Jon's wishes to get what he wants more than once. As for the Mad Queen stuff, I would honestly be surprised if they didn't go there. Her father was the Mad King, and she arrived in Westeros on dragon back and immediately started burning people! We know the context and we know her character, but none of the Westerosi do, so it only makes sense that they would fear her in that way. Sam is bound to prefer his best friend, who he trusts and knows how to manipulate, to a queen he's wary of who killed his family. That said, I don't think that means Dany is necessarily doomed. She just has to show them who she is as a leader. For those who don't have as personal a grievance as Sam, that should be enough.

Dany rallying the troops before the Battle of Winterfell? She's got to have a badass ruler moment that convinces the Northerners to follow her. One thing last night's episode taught me: take other people's interpretations of scenes with a LARGE grain of salt. Pretty much every major Jon scene played out differently (and better!) than what I expected based on leaks.

Agree with all of this - and I find it so tiresome the way every single episode thread devolves into fights between pro- and anti- Sansa factions. I think there is more nuance in the way the show portrays these tensions than in the way some fans perceive them. Re: the food concern, it's a reasonable thing for Sansa to be initially concerned about, but it also shows that she doesn't really understand what's coming. They are not going to be feeding an army through a long winter - not even for a couple weeks. She doesn't grasp the scope of the threat and just how many of them are about to die - and how could she, since she hasn't seen it herself? This leads to her downplaying Dany's importance and focusing on her own resentment. In turn, Dany has seen the threat and she knows she is going to be sending much of her loyal following out to die. To protect the North, to protect humanity. For her to arrive at Winterfell with this gift and be received with so little welcome and respect is understandably frustrating. On the flip side, she should know better than anyone that she has to show them something to earn their loyalty, since we've seen her do it time and again as she built this huge army. All this situation needs is a good conversation between the two. It really doesn't need to get as dramatic as some people are making it out to be.

I know some people are hoping for an Arya romance, but I just don’t see it. She doesn’t seem to have it in her to feel that way about anybody. Even before she went through her training, she saw Gendry more as family than anything else. I thought it was interesting that Jon and Dany being related wasn’t part of that conversation at all - neither Sam nor Jon made the connection. Jon’s thoughts immediately jumped to defending Ned and then his own honor as a man who would never betray a vow. I actually liked this and thought it was a sign of growth as a politician from Jon. Rather than tell them the dumb truth, he framed the decision in a way that would be more likely to convince them it was the right call. On the whole, I liked the Sansa/Jon stuff in the episode more than I expected to, especially once they had their private conversation. She’s not wrong to have some questions, but Jon is also right that he’s earned some trust from her. She keeps undermining him in public, and complaining about having to feed Dany’s army in front of the whole assembly is definitely not respectful. I would like to actually see her being a smart and sophisticated player rather than just constantly being told she is by other characters.