Solace247

They’ve submitted “The Iron Throne” for nomination in the best writing category for the Emmy’s—can you imagine?

There’s always delegating—but that takes a desire to share the responsibility and the recognition. There’s a reason EP’s usually have a robust writers room (an absolute must as a rookie show-runner IMO), production responsibilities take up the lion’s share of your time.

That is honestly all I thought though the entire series finale. Man, they’re really leaning on PD to sell this shit sandwich. He’s a shell of his former character—has been since season 6 at least. He’s a 21st century insert in an already ridiculous and inconsistent storyline. Tyrion sad-face just made me to punch him. He is the literal embodiment of failing upwards. Oh, sorry, he wears his hand pin as a heavy burden. His admonishing speech to Jon? Bullshit. His even getting a chance to lead and speechify in front of that ‘council’? Bullshit. His meta speech about stories? Bullshit. I hate when people use this turn of phrase, but I’m gonna use it anyways—this season’s writing was an insult to the audience. INSULT, I SAY! I know some are saying only a few episodes were needed to sell this Daenerys turn, or an extra season, but I think this needed to be seeded in season 6. Toss Cersei to the curb in season 7. Daenerys’ whole ideology developed off-screen—and don’t tell me it’s on the cutting-room floor. In my opinion, they had to gut every major character to even attempt sell this trajectory: Jon, Varys, Tyrion, Sansa, and Arya, all had to be twisted, edited, or truncated to get to this point. Missandei has to be removed completely, except to die, apparently. Jorah had to argue in Tyrion’s defence because he learns, apparently—where the evidence for that is, I have no fucking clue. Whatever, let me be hyperbolic—this is writing is practically negligent.

You know what else Tyrion knew of? A secret passage into the Red Keep—one he himself used to meet in secret with Jamie. The same one he described to Jamie last as an escape route. Why dragonfire or a siege when you can sneak a team of soldiers or Arya into the Keep itself? These last two seasons have gutted the characters, arcs, and plots. How is that even possible???

I saw this scene both as condescending, as you mention above, and also as a short-hand tactic to hand-wave how utterly 180 Dany’s arc is from 8.03 to 8.06. It’s the writers saying: “See? There’s a clear and definite through-line to this subversive turn. We did it!”. And the inverted word-play of Tyrion was another short-hand for: “See? Tyrion really is clever.” I found the whole scene insulting. Honestly, nearly all of Dany’s actions were framed as kick-ass until she hit Westeros. Then, all of a sudden, her advisors are whispering in darkened rooms, clutching their pearls, waxing on about 21st century ethics in a time of medieval warfare. Targeted flames bad, prolonged starvation good. If I didn’t know D&D had gotten GRRM’s bullet points earlier, I would have thought it was at this point that they found out about Dany’s endgame, that’s how ridiculous the discussions surrounding the war became, and for what? To plant the seeds of her villainy? Please. To keep Cersei around sipping wine in season 8? Probably. Too bad their version of descent into villainy consisted of repeatedly listening to a negligent hand and impotent master of whispers until they conspire behind her back which then drives her crazy in the SECOND TO LAST EPISODE OF ALL TIME. Also, FASCISM. You can’t forget to include that sweet, sweet, Fascist Imagery(tm).

The fact that they had to put voiceover dialogue bits in the preceding scenes to the episode where Daenerys burns KL and have Tyrion dialogue about the character’s journey to Jon (the audience) in the finale tells you EVERYTHING you need to know about this arc. It was unearned as was most of the season.

That’s fine if you think it makes sense—it’s there’s in bullet point form, but then, so was Jonerys baby. To me, bullet points aren’t television they’re PowerPoint presentations. The contrivances of season 7 & 8: practically ever Tyrion shitfest that deprived Danaerys of her forces; miracle fleets and nerfed Highgarden soldiers to keep Cersei around; Dany respawning major forces an episode later; easily dispatching Cersei’s forces—it’s all so ridiculous that it only lends incredulity to the Danaerys heel turn. I’m going in to this finale feeling absolutely nothing for any of the characters. In fact, I actively despise practically all of them (thanks to their stupidity, heavy suspicion, or omniscience as the plot requires) ,save for Davos, who I’m merely indifferent to. That’s the power of television, I guess.

That’s precisely the problem but I’m coming at it from a slight angle. They had to hit MAD DANY by ep. 5 of a 6 episode season (I like to think that this was either lack of planning or wanting to save the reveal to the last minute—which is cheap). Every character had to service that narrative because Dany was nowhere near that person at the end of season 7. So now, everyone apparently has foreknowledge that Dany’s losing it by ep. 5 and they are written as hollow versions of themselves or else practically omniscient because there’s apparently no time to build it up organically. It’s all MECHANICAL.

So, watching the finale with Emilia’s gonna be pretty awkward, eh? I’d hate to be in that position, pretending to appreciate one iota of what I’m seeing onscreen. Compliments on the performances I guess.

To be fair, she never really had a good spymaster ever. Varys was useless past Dorne. Her advisors have only existed to ensure Cersei was around for season 8 to mug for the camera.

This is precisely why a shortened season 7 and 8 was a ridiculous notion. Where we left off in season 7 was completely replaced by side-eying Danaerys (insert ominous music here), muting Jon ( he has nothing to say to anyone, apparently) and carrying over Sansa and Arya's bizarre characterization from last season with the added anvil that Sansa is super smart now since she apparently got the script for episode 5 early. None of the conversations onscreen were designed to flesh out the familial relationship in light of the legitimacy claim or vice versa. Nor did anyone address Dany needing to earn the Northerner support—accept that she helped prevent the end of the world, but whatever. None of the advisors advised Dany in any way—they merely talked amongst themselves about marriage whilst failing to mention to the parties involved—even to just be shot down? Come on. But we’re supposed to believe they’re afraid because of a shitty post war dinner? Ridiculous. This season placed heavy emphasis on two mediocre battle episodes with very little dialogue to the detriment of nearly EVERY major character. The only characters allowed to act like themselves were the minor ones who have little dialogue to begin with, but were at least allowed to be consistent. This may have always been heading this way, but they had to HEAVILY pivot all the characters to make it happen—including Danaerys, from the beginning of this season. I never really liked most of season 7 because it came across as heavily contrived, but in light of season 8, I think they majorly bungled telling this story well. The stupidity and lack of conversations between all the characters has left me feeling nothing for any of them. Hell, even Davos has had one conversation this season—bringing up the most obvious attempt at a solution that isn’t even attempted. I don’t believe anything that we’ve been shown this season, because NO ONE is allowed to act smartly. NOT ONE PERSON.

Good writing would have had it be about different things for both of them. Dany was robbed of the feeling of having family and not being alone; Jon was robbed of exploring his roots and having a fully-formed identity. The Wedge(tm) would have worked better had it encompassed all of this in addition to the legitimacy claim.

Convenient that the show never had an outright conversation about it with the two people callable of making the decision. The show is clearly being ‘crafted’, but not deftly, that’s for sure.

That show taught me to no longer off buy season box sets until the end is in the bag. I’m pretty sure I still have season “2.5” kicking around somewhere. I totally am with you on both shows. When you think about rewatching them because you’ve recently thought of some neat aspect, but then you re-center and remember it’s not worth it. Welcome GOT.

If the show had Jon acknowledge that his honour often causes other’s lives, I could stomach his shit this late in the game. However, he’s that annoying, slumped-shouldered, ‘mine is the weight of the world’ tool that conveniently avoids coming face to face with the repercussions of his “honour” (at least in a self-aware way). Just to be clear, I’m not laying the destruction of KL at his feet.