Eyes High

Sansa has had a lot of hideous dresses over the years, but her S8 dresses have been on point, and the coronation dress was perfection. Poor Arya only got one new outfit in S8, and it was really just a grey variation of her previous outfit. I was hoping for something a bit different. Bran had feathers embroidered into the capelet he was wearing in his farewell scene with Jon. A nod to his 3ER identity, I guess. After two seasons of wearing striped fabrics with no Lannister touches in his clothes, Tyrion is finally dressing like a Lannister again. His last outfit was in black leather (like Tywin), with gold clasps up the front (as he wore in Seasons 3 and 4) and gold swirls on black leather (as he wore in Season 3). He has embraced his identity as a Lannister again, and he's dressing a lot like Tywin, which makes sense now that he ended up where Tywin ended up (as king in all but name). Dany's 8x05/8x06 conqueror outfit was amazing.

Dany is responsible for her own emotions and choices. Blaming anyone else for her actions, especially the one person who always tried to stop her from giving in to her destructive impulses, is gross.

Sure, but that's fanfic, no more and no less, and it's fanfic on the level of Bronn stabbing Tyrion minutes after we cut away from the small council meeting and declaring himself his replacement. Could it happen? It's not impossible. Is it at all likely to happen, given what we've seen? No. Michele Clapton has said more than once since S7 that Sansa's costuming is supposed to indicate that she's closing herself off to the possibility of physical touch. And there was no softening of that in S8. Instead, she graduated from tight belts to full-on armour-type corsets. Even in her "softer" scenes with Jon and Theon and even after Dany's death, she's still wearing armour-type outfits. One would have expected some hints from Sansa's costuming if her outlook towards being touched again was changing. Instead, she went the opposite direction. In her very last scene of the show, her corset looks like a cage. She didn't have "Sansa will never marry, fall in love or have sex ever again" embroidered on her clothes, but she might as well have. Also, visually, Sansa's coronation scene seemed to have intentional nods to Elizabeth's coronation scene in the 1998 movie Elizabeth (including Sansa wearing her hair long), as well as the final scene in that film after Elizabeth has transformed herself into the untouchable, unfeeling Virgin Queen who forever turns her back on love. D&D directed the scene, so if that's the vibe they wanted to create and the comparison they intended to invoke, I think my interpretation is indeed the correct one.

Yes, but the ending as strongly implied supports the forever single childless lady endgame and not yours, just as it doesn't imply Jon rushing back to Sansa because he's madly in love with her. That was my point. Sansa could have kids or get married, but that is certainly not what's implied, no more than Jon ditching out on the far Northerners so that he can finally marry Sansa.

And you can think that, but it’s just as much fanfic as Jon turning back moments after we cut away from him and rushing back to Sansa’s side to declare his love eternal, and it’s just about as likely given the ending we saw. The costuming was a clear signal. I said a while ago that assuming D&D knew from early on that Sansa’s endgame was as the forever single Lady of Winterfell (as I then believed) that they probably chose to swap Sansa in for Jeyne in the rape storyline by way of explanation why she would reject any further marriage or relationship. I also suggested that Sansa would never want to remarry or have another relationship given her experience with Ramsay. I got a lot of flak for it (how dare I suggest that women can never move on from trauma, what a horrible message that would be for rape survivors, etc. etc.), but it seems now that that early intuition was correct. Sansa ends up as the untouchable ice queen grateful to her abusers for toughening her up, because I guess D&D deal in those sorts of absolutes.

I dunno. I mean, even assuming Jon going to the NW was Bran’s idea and not Tyrion’s (and I have my doubts about that one), Tyrion coldly and deliberately manipulated Jon to kill Dany. Tyrion knows it, too: “What I did”/“What we did.” It was chilling watching Tyrion do it, too. Even when he was trying to get Jon on board as one of Dany’s allies, Tyrion has never actually worked Jon over like that, according him at least that basic respect. Tyrion did just that in 8x06, though, systematically wearing Jon down and bringing up his sisters as the coup de grace. Poor, dumb Jon was helpless to do anything about it. Everyone pined for the return of Tyrion as a player, and they got it in 8x06. He played everyone like a fiddle. He got Jon to get rid of Dany and be stuck with the blame for it. He got the Lannister-hating lords and ladies of Westeros to install him as their effective ruler behind a puppet king (whom Tyrion knew very well would be a puppet, since Bran told him “Mostly I live in the past”) and made them think it was their idea. He supported (or may even have proposed) packing Jon off to the NW, thus eliminating him as a threat to his power. He created a small council made up of a good natured yes man, a crony who has always proven loyal to him as long as he paid up , and a woman madly in love with his brother (with a bonus kingsguard who has also proven 100% loyal to Tyrion in the past).

Those who want to imagine that Sansa eventually has children are free to do so, just as Jonsa shippers are free to imagine that Jon does a U-turn immediately after heading into the far North to be by Sansa's side, or Gendrya shippers are free to imagine that Gendry secretly stowed away on Arya's ship, but the fact that Sansa in her final scene is still dressing in a manner that indicates she never intends to be touched ever again, including a cage-like corset, does not indicate that that is a likely outcome. Queen Elizabeth never had children, either.

As someone who's bagged on Sansa's hideous costumes in previous seasons, she looked amazing in Season 8. That coronation dress was perfection, and I loved the weirwood leaf details embroidered inside the sleeves. It was hard to get a good look at it with the lighting, though. Michele Clapton has said a few times that Sansa's tight dresses, belts and corsets are intended to be a visual shorthand indicating that she never intends anyone to touch her again, and her coronation dress is tight with a corset. So I guess being extremely single for the rest of her life is Sansa's endgame, and she'll cross the succession bridge when she comes to it. I really thought they were going somewhere with Sansa/Tyrion, but they definitely zigged instead of zagging on that one (with Tyrion confessing his love for Dany to Jon). At least they seem to be on good terms at the end.

Tyrion ending up king for all intents and purposes with Bran as his puppet reminded me of this conversation between Tywin and Tyrion in 3x10: Tyrion: You just sent the most powerful man in Westeros to bed without his supper. Tywin: You're a fool if you believe he's the most powerful man in Westeros. Tyrion: A treasonous statement. Joffrey is king. Tywin: You really think a crown gives you power? And Tyrion ends up as Tywin 2.0, custodian of the Lannister legacy and Hand to a king who's pretty much checked out (Aerys in Tywin's case, Bran in Tyrion's).

Given that Bran told Tyrion that he mostly lives in the past, Tyrion’s actions (while no doubt taken out of the goodness of his heart) are the perfect Machiavellian power play. 1. Resign as Hand in dramatic and public fashion, forcing Dany to imprison you. 2. Count on Jon’s conscience to lead him to visit you. Impress upon him the need to get rid of Dany. When all other appeals to reason fail, invoke his sisters. 3. Wait for Jon to do the deed, confident that this will take him out of the king running. Dany and Jon are both eliminated as contenders. 4. Propose that the lords and ladies of Westeros choose a new ruler. When they’re stymied, suggest Bran, whom you know will be the perfect puppet (“Mostly I live in the past”) and whom you reasonably assume will choose you as Hand, leaving you as king in all but name. 5. When Bran does choose you as Hand, modestly demur for the sake of appearances. You mustn’t look too eager. 6. Suggest to Bran that Jon get ordered to the NW as an acceptable compromise. Pass this off to Jon as Bran’s idea. This permanently eliminates Jon as a potential claimant and secures your power. 7. Make good on your promise to Bronn, making him one of the most powerful people in Westeros, and put him on your small council. So without dirtying his own hands, Tyrion managed to manipulate Jon into killing Dany, manipulate the council into selecting a king of his choosing, and ending up as the effective king of Westeros. All while he’s a prisoner! And they say Tyrion’s not as smart as he used to be.

I thought they were going somewhere with Sansa/Tyrion this season, but I guess he was in love with Dany the whole time...? Oh, well. Tyrion’s argument for King Bran was bullshit. I assume they had to get to Book Bran’s endgame, but still. Why wasn’t Jon’s claim brought up during that discussion? I assume Varys told everyone. I never thought Sansa would be endgame QITN in the books. Badass costume, though. The bit with Brienne filling out Jaime’s entry was lovely. And I love that Pod is a kingsguard, too.

From what I can tell, Jon being the legitimate heir to the throne not amounting to anything or changing anything in the end other than destroying Jon and Dany's relationship is a very GRRM thing to do. Jon metaphorically erasing his Westeros existence by disappearing into the far North also does away with a lot of the issues with having a resurrected Jon involved in Westeros as king or the Stark patriarch or what have you. The show glossed over this stuff (I expect because D&D knew Jon's endgame from pretty early on and therefore none of it ultimately mattered), but I doubt GRRM will. We don't know how Book Jon will be as a Beric-type zombie. How long will he live? Can he even father children? Will his memory start to fade as Beric's did? Packing off Jon Frodo-style eliminates these issues. D&D teasing Jon and Dany having a kid in S7 seems like a particularly cruel red herring, but I think it was always intended as such, rather than as a dropped plot thread. Jorah urges Jon to give Longclaw to his children, but there won't be any. On the other hand, Tyrion being in love with Dany (according to the outlines and hints like Cersei commenting on Dany being Tyrion's sort of woman) in S7 makes no sense given what happened in Season 8. Tyrion being in love with Dany only works as an explanation for why he was so stubbornly invested in her success until the end, but S8 presented other reasons for Tyrion believing in Dany. S8 also introduced the idea that Tyrion is legit terrified of Dany, which seems like a bit of a retcon. I certainly didn't see anything in the text or subtext in S8 to indicate that Tyrion was in love with her. Nor did I see the slightest whiff of jealousy towards Jon and Dany's relationship; Tyrion even supported Davos' call for a marriage between them and tried to get Varys on board with it in 8x04. So I don't know what all that was supposed to be about. It's almost as if D&D changed their minds between S7 and S8. While all the Stark kids end the series technically alive, it's pretty grim. Bran Stark has been consumed by the 3ER; as Meera said, Bran died in the cave. Arya commits Frodo-style metaphorical suicide by sailing west of Westeros from which no one has ever returned. Jon commits Frodo-style metaphorical suicide by abandoning Westeros and disappearing into the far North. Sansa is alone at Winterfell, permanently separated from her siblings. The pack may have survived but it is permanently dissolved.

I don’t blame D&D for playing to the actors’ strengths. They knew that Kit was gold in action scenes but not much else. They knew that Richard Madden was hot and charismatic and that people wanted to see more of him. They knew that Peter and Lena were great friends and had fantastic chemistry. They knew that Alfie could pull off pretty much everything they threw at him. They knew that Charles Dance improved every scene he was in. Playing to all that was smart. I do think the actors did start to influence how the TV characters were written in some cases. TV Tormund is basically Kristofer Hivju according to the cast, down to the bonecrunching hugs and sense of humour. Rory McCann is a loner of few words. And of course Pod’s prowess with the ladies started out as a nod to Daniel Portman being a bit of a Casanova in real life. So over time, the writers were influenced by the actors and what they brought to the roles as much as anything else. Maybe with another actress who played Cersei as more of a straight-up villainess, the writers wouldn’t have been as interested in Cersei.

I think it can be both. TLJ didn't give fans what they wanted (heroic Luke, cool Rey parentage reveal, etc.), but it was also a terribly written movie with several notable examples of bad writing. Both factored into the backlash. Although it leaves me in the minority, I don't have any big problem with the writing in S8, I've never had any big problem with the writing on the show, and I quite enjoyed the episodes everyone else seems to hate, but even I can't defend King Bran.

A backlash to the finale will absolutely kill the spinoff. (And “Bloodmoon” is a terrible name; it sounds like a YA vampire/werewolf romance.) The same thing happened with How I Met Your Mother. I think the bigger writing sin between Mad Queen Dany and King Bran is King Bran. Even the most ardent Dany fan will admit that there were signs that this could happen. With Bran, there was nothing before 8x04, and even that was flimsy. Even then, “Mostly I live in the past” is really not something you want to hear from your king, and yet the person who convinces everyone that King Bran is a good idea is the same person who heard Bran say this! Who hears "Mostly I live in the past" and thinks "Yeah, this person is definitely the best choice to rule Westeros"? The writers also had Bran insist he can't be lord of anything because he's the 3ER, which seems like an incredibly bizarre choice if indeed he ends up as the king. They had eight seasons to tee this up and did nothing. Nothing! There’s shock value, and then there’s random bullshit. ...I could buy Tyrion backing Bran as king, despite knowing he's useless except as a historical resource, if he suspected that Bran would make him Hand and it was all part of a power play to take over, but that seems more like a Book Tyrion move. TV Tyrion is this noble, saintly character who truly wants to make Westeros a better place and wouldn't back someone unless he honestly believed that they were the right choice as a leader, and given that Tyrion has heard Bran say that he doesn't want anything (not just the lordship of Winterfell, but anything) and that he mostly lives in the past, I don't see how he could possibly believe that.

The frustrating thing is that they had eight seasons or at worst two seasons after Bran’s transformation into the 3ER to make King Bran a compelling or at least plausible ending, but instead they’ve turned Bran into this creepy, inscrutable robot who feels nothing and does nothing. They could have teased Bran as following some sort of Leto-type Golden Path or as a cunning Machiavellian figure using his omniscience to guide events, but instead they’ve leaned hard into the idea of Bran just chilling uselessly while everyone runs around trying to get shit done. If Tyrion’s going to end up ruling anyway, why not just make him king and cut out the middle man?It’s utterly baffling. Also, King Bran isn’t even Bran anymore, as the 3ER would tell you. At this point, “Bran” is a thing wearing Bran’s face. It’s like Fred and Illyria, for those who get that reference.

The embargo being discussed applies to the networks, not the actors. Jacob Anderson did an interview very recently.

Also, "Jon is hot but incredibly dumb." To be fair, Jaime/Brienne was never endgame, either, but that pairing got a decent slow burn and believable buildup. On the other hand, D&D only had seven episodes to take Jon and Dany from strangers to lovers, and they only met in the third of those episodes.

Yes, absolutely! It may sound cheesy, but at its heart, the show is nothing without love: the love between a tough-minded pirate sister and her eternal fuckup of a beloved baby brother, between a scarred, sad warrior and his terrifying surrogate daughter, between a sweet, purehearted squire and the brusque, equally purehearted knight he wants to emulate, between a fucked-up golden boy big brother and the disabled little brother who always worshipped him as his only friend and protector, between an outrageous wildling and the little crow who won his respect and his friendship, etc. Without these relationships, without love, it's just, well, fire and blood.

The Lost ending had me full-on sobbing. Any show that manages to get that kind of emotional reaction out of its viewers did something right. From the spoilers, I don't expect I'll cry at the GOT finale, but Jon reuniting with Tormund and Ghost might just do the trick.

Looking at Jon/Dany versus other relationships on the show, from the perspective of someone who watches a lot of TV romances, I think the writers have come up with some very romantic stuff for non-Jon/Dany pairings. Jaime/Brienne had some really nice show-only moments: Brienne looking back at Jaime when she was riding away, Jaime looking at Tarth, Jaime telling her that Oathkeeper would always be hers, etc. Their drunken hookup and brutal breakup in 8x04 make the whole thing less appealing in retrospect, but D&D did a good job of selling the slow burn beforehand. Jaime and Cersei's death scene was also very romantic, if incredibly fucked up. D&D also did a good job of transmuting Book Jorah's gross obsession with Dany into a love that was noble, chivalrous and even beautiful on the show. Grey Worm and Missandei's relationship was sweet and believable. And even if they don't end up together, Tyrion kissing Sansa's hand before facing death was the single most romantic moment in this show, ever. They've also done a good job with several non-romantic relationships. Theon and Sansa's trauma-forged bond was believable. Sandor and Arya's relationship in the show was very touching. Tyrion and Jaime's relationship was always very well rendered. Theon and Yara had a great sibling relationship. Pod and Brienne's developing bond, with Pod's sweet devotion and Brienne's grudging acceptance of that devotion, was always well written. And even though Jorah and Dany's relationship remained platonic, Dany's love for him was always shown to be deep and undeniable. Tormund's journey from Jon's enemy to one of his closest friends and most ardent supporters totally worked. And so on. My conclusion is that D&D can write great relationships, romantic or otherwise. I think with Jon/Dany, though, everything was just so slightly off, like Dany goading Jon into riding the dragon in 8x01, and I think in retrospect that that was intentional. It was a very difficult needle to thread, though. How can you simultaneously sell the audience completely on Jon and Dany's love for each other while also showing the cracks in the foundation that will cause everything to collapse?

Thinking a lot about the character endgames that we now know, I think a lot of it is very fitting, even if how they got there is questionable: Theon: Dies at Winterfell, the castle he once attacked and took, defending Bran and the other Starks Jorah: Dies defending Dany (most of us figured he would go that way, anyway) Lyanna: After all her tough talk about being a hero, dies doing something heroic (sacrificing herself to take out the giant) Jaime: Unable to abandon Cersei and dies in her arms as he wished ("She'll be the end of you") Cersei: After doing everything to preserve her power, dies when the Red Keep literally comes crashing down on her head Sandor: Dies getting the revenge he wanted but successfully stops Arya from dying in her quest for vengeance Jon: After years of being used by other people (even his friends and family like Sansa and Sam) in service of this or that aim and thrust into this or that position of leadership against his wishes, he finally finds peace beyond the Wall with people who didn't care about his bastardy and who don't care about his claim Tyrion: Like Tywin, brings what we can assume will be peace and prosperity to Westeros by serving as Hand to a checked-out king (although not a mad one in Tyrion's case) Arya: Gives up her quest for vengeance, rejects a conventional existence and seeks out a life of adventure Sansa: Remains Lady of Winterfell Dany: Brought down by her refusal to restrain her Targaryen side, which had been an ongoing problem (Dany becoming less and less inclined to listen to Tyrion's calls for restraint, e.g.) ...I dunno. Apart from King Bran, it all works for me. That leaves me in the minority, I realize. I now see what John Bradley was talking about in terms of "satisfying," where he compared S8 to the Red Wedding. All of this fits and feels right to me (apart from King Bran), even if it's painful and tragic, maybe even because it's painful and tragic. A lot of it feels brutally logical to me, even Dany's dark turn. Also, while we talk about the Lannisters having eaten the show and D&D's clear preference for them, I do think there was something truly moving and even beautiful about how the Lannister siblings were there for each other at the very end. Cersei spared Tyrion's life when he walked within range of her archers, even though it would have been an easy and cheap way to provoke Dany. Tyrion did something that he thought was signing his own death warrant not only to try to save KL but also to give Jaime and Cersei a shot at escaping with their lives. Jaime gave up any shot at redemption and sacrificed his own life to die alongside Cersei. And Cersei, realizing it was all over, tearfully reconciled with Jaime, begging him not to let her die. For all the talk about how pure the Starks' love is and how toxic the Lannisters supposedly are, when push came to shove, it was the Lannisters who loved each other, fought for each other and ultimately died (or tried to die, in Tyrion's case) for each other.

The Shawshank Redemption is one of my favourite movies, so I'm equally cool with this, but I stand by my ship. Tormund calls him "My little crow"! On another note, I don't know if anyone remembers, but HBO through Direct TV released these little character-specific videos the week before the premiere with clips and quotes edited together to music. I went and rewatched the Tyrion one, and it includes his speech to Dany about how he never wanted to believe in anything, but he believed in her. Incredibly tragic, in light of what happened. The Jaime video concluded with Joffrey taunting Jaime about his lack of great deeds, and Jaime saying that "There's still time." I guess there wasn't.

I saw more than a few casual unspoiled viewers prick their ears up on Twitter at Jon and Tormund's "This is goodbye, OR IS IT?" conversation in 8x04, so even Jon going North won't come as a complete surprise, I think. The only real shock will be King Bran, I think. It is hilarious to me that the only endgame ship left standing other than Sam/Gilly will be Tormund/Jon. Jon ends up with a cute wildling kissed by fire, just not Ygritte. In retrospect, if you assume that Jon was always going to find out about his claim, his claim was always going to become public knowledge, and Jon was never going to get over the incest, Jon and Dany's romance seems horribly doomed in retrospect, like a Greek tragedy. Jon wouldn't be Jon if he could get over the incest, and Dany wouldn't be Dany if she could give up on the throne rather than cede to Jon's claim. Also in retrospect, Drogon staring Jon down in 8x01 when he was kissing Dany was a symbolic nod to how his Targ parentage would end up tearing them apart. It seems very ominous on rewatch.

I don't think the non-spoiled audience will be too shocked when Jon kills Dany. They can all see where this is going. That's the main reason in my opinion why the blowback over 8x05 was so intense. Everyone knew Dany was a dead woman and Team Jon (if not necessarily Jon) would have to put her down the minute she set civilians on fire.