Katsullivan

The entire Tarly plot exists to add some stakes to the story by involving Sam's family, as a known reference, and to drag out a foregone conclusion to the Dany vs Cersei battle. I mean, just observe the discussion he has with Jaimie at King's Landing. Jaimie: So glad you made it since Highgarden is in open rebellion. Tarly: Are you kidding me? Cersei burns her enemies. (That's why I decided to come to King's Landing to make it more convenient for her to burn me!) Jaimie: So... are you fighting for Cersei or Olenna? Tarly: I dunno... On the one hand, Olenna is an old woman that's always been nice to me. But Cersei burns her enemies. (Which is why I'm here, being all indecisive about whether I'm her enemy or not). Jaimie: Well, if you kill Olenna, you'll be the next Warden. Tarly: Mmm.... that is interesting. Jaimie: So think about it OK? Tarly: Yeah, I will. And if you don't hear from me, the next time we see each other, we'll be trying to kill each other. Jaimie: Have a safe trip! Tarly: Cheerio!

In addition, Rhaegar and Aemon discussed the prophecies. I don't know if that made it into the TV show, but it's probably plot significant.

Since the show parted from the books, everything concerning Sansa sounds completely ridiculous. Also, what was the point of the Hound/Arya buddy cup show of Season 5 since that doesn't come up when the Hound deals with Jon? Or Dany could just end the war faster??? I love that they don't even bother trying to explain how Jaime and Bronn walked out of that situation.

The real criminal here is the writing. Dany has had some visions about the Impending Doom; and Mellisandre an episode ago mentioned something about an Impending Doom. But the writers gave her (and Tyrion, and Varys) convenient amnesia so Jon's story sounds ridiculous. (And didn't Tyrion also get some "bad feels" from the Wall? Isn't that why he agreed to send some men to the Wall when that NW showed up on King's Landing asking for help and Arya fell in with them, etc. Apparently, that's also been forgotten for plot sake.) Then there's Aemon Targaryen - who was one of Jon's mentors and took this seriously. Jon could mention that to Dany. Even if that didn't straight up convince her, she won't be so pissed at him if he came to her with stories about her last (known) living relative. Instead we're stuck in this "bend the knee"/"give me your dragons"/"bend the knee!"/"give me your dragons!" back-and-forth that, as @anamika said in another thread, is less about plot and more about Jon starring in a romcom with Dany (with Davos as wingman). We all know that this entire "bend the knee" shtick is just foreplayshadowing to when he finally... clears throat... "bends the knee"... clears throat. But if we have to take the writing as canon - sighs - then I'm still going to stand my ground that Jon is the unreasonable, entitled person here. The burden of proving his own story is on him. He's the one coming cap in hand with nothing to offer or threaten. He should have come with someone from the Night's Watch in the first place. He can suggest that Dany send emissaries to the North. etc. It's not wrong or unreasonable of Dany to not immediately abandon her own life's quest to help him, simply because he said so but, in the meanwhile, is not willing to give up his Crown for said help.

Ugh. Don't remind me.

OMG! I just spat out my coffee! OMG, that sounds true --- depressingly true.

Don't get me wrong, I'm happy with the Jonerys (is that the ship name?) that's clearly being building this season --- but (tiny book purist whine) they're doing it all wrong! This exactly. Speak for yourself. Alys Karstark acquiring a pack of direwolves sounds like the plot of a sequel to me.

(Thank you. I'm enjoying this, too.) It's not Dany if Tyrion isn't mentioning a marriage alliance. And Davos isn't mentioning a marriage alliance. (Hey, gurl, my boy Jon here is single. Why don't we make love not war and we both get what we want?) And Varys isn't mentioning a marriage alliance. And Olenna, that oh-so-famous match-maker (she got her grand-daughter married to not one, but three Kings) isn't mentioning one. So unless, we're arguing that every character on the show is suffering amnesia or forgetting the way this world works - and not just Dany even though she clearly knew that when she banished Daario to Mereen a few days ago (which is how long the Narrow Sea crossing takes) - then it's the writing, not the characters. Stab me in the heart, will you.

But why should the UK want to save the Louisiana Purchase from the Pirates of the Caribbean if Louisiana is not a UK colony? And if Louisiana is that desperate for the UK help (for a situation that mind you, the UK only have Louisiana's word even exists) --- why the heck won't Louisiana agree to be a colony to get this much-needed help? Like, all you're doing is giving examples for why Jon's argument that he can't bend the knee, even if it would cost him Dany's help, don't make any sense and take the steam out of his ARMAGEDDON! warnings. (Heck, even the show acknowledges this when Jon says "we're wasting time!" and Tyrion replies "it takes 5 seconds to bend the knee" and we get a convenient interruption.) Technically, Jon arrived after her allies's ships were attacked by Euron so time-wise, Dany's war with Cersei had already began. Psychologically, you can argue that the Targaryens have been at War with the Baratheon Dynasty (which is Cersei's claim to the Iron Throne) since Robert's Rebellion. Either way... Jon has something that Dany can take. In war between the Northern Army vs 3 Dragons+Dothraki+Unsullied, the outcome is clear. Heck, all she has to do is fly her dragons to Winterfell and torch it from the Sky. Of course, Dany would prefer it if he pulled a Torrhen Stark and bent the knee and spared the casualties. Jon has no advantage in this situation. He has nothing to offer, and he has nothing to threaten her with. Dany is being almost annoyingly generous in her dealings with her enemies and would-be enemies this season. LOL!

Emilia is not a wooden actress and I dare anyone to show the kind of affection she showed to whatever CGI puppies she carried in her arms in the earlier seasons when the dragons were babies. The show hasn't done Dany's character any favors - they've traded a lot of nuances with big bombastic stage pieces, e.g. her "desert madness" at the end of Dance with Dragons, or how when Dany rides Drogon for the first time, she's saving him not the other way around. Emilia has delivered solid gold with the material she's been given. In the last episode alone, we watched her go from giggly with Melisandre, to awed (and slightly horny) with Jon in the cave, to irate and suspicious at Tyrion, then pensive after talking to Jon, to Fire-and-blood at the battle field, to fear when Drogon was hit, to Spite when she nearly took out Bronn, to fear again when Jaimie charged her. And half of those scenes were with her on top of a rocking horse.

That's on the shitty writing not Dany. She returns to Westeros with political marriage in mind but she never brings it up in season 7. Tyrion doesn't suggest it. Neither does Varys. Olenna, etc don't mention it. It's a plot point that the show has completely dropped because I suppose they realized it was too obvious that Dany had only one real "offer" and that was Jon and they needed to go Hollywood meet/cute/hate-to-love romance trope with them. It's the same reason why Jon's never brought up Aemon Targaryen to Dany or why Dany has forgotten the visions she had in the House of the Undying: lack of continuity and D&D wanting to write their silly fanficcy plots.

I think Bran growing into a tree to replace the One-Eyed raven who had been a tree makes sense. The show makes changes like this due to: contract reasons (having to keep the actor on the show episode after episode, see: Alfie Allen's "Reek arc") and budget reasons: for the CGI and needing the Bran actor to stay in the same set with the other actors and save money on logistics and even more CGI. (LOL @ Canada sounding like a good idea and Russia being too soon.) But let's work with that parallel: Was the United States recently a vassal nation to Finland that seceded? Was the secession a mutual decision or did the USA just say "Nope, we're declaring a Revolution against ...." Wait a minute. Let's use something closer to true history to get some real perspective. The American Revolution. The recently "minted" USA asks the United Kingdom to send soldiers and weapons to fight an alien invasion. Meanwhile, UK is currently fighting a war against ... say, France or some other country in Europe. But the USA is like: "Nope, that war doesn't matter. We need your soldiers and weapons now. You need to leave your war with Europe and come and help us fight off these aliens." UK: So... you're asking us to put ourselves at risk for your Protection. Does this mean you're going to become a colony again. USA: I don't understand the question. UK: (looks at the camera like in The Office). Hope is all we have.... :)

Yes, I imagine that they'll transfer Varys's role in the fAegon plot from the books to Jon with roughly the same conclusion for Varys.

So? I don't get the point you're making because I already said this: If the North aren't taking the matter seriously enough, then why should Dany? See my CalExit example. I think the show was fine when they had book material to mine from but with every season since they've gone off-script (and even before, see: Sansa's Rape), they've been doing an increasingly shitty job to the extent that they can't even keep continuity from one episode to the next. However.... It's the closest thing I'll ever get to a conclusion of a story I started reading 21 years. So I'm stuck with it.

No, she doesn't. Dany literally tells him when he approaches her court: "I have 3 Large Dragons and 2 Bad-ass Armies. I don't need anything from you so WTF is your attitude, Mister?" OK, maybe not literally :P . If anything, the longer Jon takes to make a credible case, the longer Dany's war with Cersei is and the less the chance of her army or dragons being available to him. He is really not helping his case in this and it shows. Of course, the entire writing for this is bullshit so I guess I can't blame Jon for plot-induced stupidity. Once again, you're assuming that Dany has the audience's perspective and is using this to inform her decisions. Dany doesn't know any of this. All she's hearing is that Jon needs her Army+Dragons for this war but he's not willing to pay a price for it because "The North won't let him." Then gee, maybe the situation isn't as dire as he's making it sound since the North are being picky about the matter. Or maybe it is, but they have a Plan B that can work without her Dragons+Army. Either way, he's not communicating any sense of urgency to her and she can't be expected to make any other kind of decision based on what she knows (not on what we know as the audience, once again!).

Dany literally told him "I have an emergency meeting. Make yourself comfortable and we'll talk later." When she's talking to Tyrion about it, the question isn't whether or not she'll keep him prisoner or turn him to dragon-food, it's whether or not she'll help him. Like Jon being a hostage or prisoner or whatever was not even on the roster of decisions she needed to make. It was whether or not he'd get any help from her. And when Jon is talking to Tyrion, the issue again is "What can we do for you? You haven't given us enough to commit dragons or armies so is there anything else that we can help you with?" Yes, he broods for (about 5 seconds) about losing his ship and maybe he shouldn't have come to Dragonstone but even then, it seemed more about him being angry that he wasted his time making the journey than any real fear for his life. He's obviously free to walk around Dragonstone and approach the Dragon Queen without her guards surrounding her. But of course, if people want to insist that he was a PRISONER to suit their agenda, I daresay nothing will convince them otherwise.

The North are clearly not taking it seriously since the idea of their King kneeling to her is more important than her providing the help that they need. Or at least that's the argument that Jon is making every time he refuses to bend the knee. It's not her Kingdom until he bends the knee. The fact that Jon is not willing to accept her as Queen of the North but is demanding that she be Protector of the North is entitlement on his part, not hers. Here's a 21st century example for you: California secedes from the United States - and then they turn around and demand that the US help them fight off an invasion from North Korea. The US says, "OK, but first you need to come back to the US" and California's like "oh no, we're good. Just send your soldiers and your nukes and we'll say thanks and call it a day." What alternative universe version of this show are you watching and how can I get a subscription to it because it sounds wild.

Just quoting everything here to save myself the time and effort to repeat them. The more I think about it, the more I feel that 50% of my problem with Sansa is the writing (she should have bloody stayed standing at her wedding to Tyrion... also rape=power? seriously?!) and the other 50% is Sofie Turner's acting choices.

That's not the Stark way. That's Cersei Lannister asking for Lady to be killed. If anything Cersei death-kissing that Sand Snake herself, and swallowing the antidote seconds later, was a more Stark-like execution than anything Sansa's done.

If GRRM had written "Spoils of War", Bronn would have run the other way from Dragon fire and Jaime would have died when he charged Drogon - if he wasn't cut down by a Dothraki by fighting with his left hand. The latter most likely because GRRM was a big fan of realistic, unceremonious conclusions like: a one-handed man versus a Dothraki warrior should have only one realistic outcome. Of course, if GRRM was writing this series, Cersei would have been long dead, and we'd be facing the WW as the Big Bad of the story as it's always been set up to be. Instead, apparently, we're going to have to deal with the WW first, then return to Cersei who will probably have developed the ability to shape-shift into a giant Griffin at the rate this story is going. They've fallen into all the repetitive tropes that GRRM wrote this story specifically to subvert and what is heartbreaking about all this is that with GRRM writing at the backwards pace he's been going at, this shitty fanfiction (and yes, I used the dirty word) is what we're going to have to accept as canon.

But not more important than him being King in the North? All he's doing is weakening his own argument because if the North – the first to fall, the most vulnerable to this ARMAGGEDON he’s talking about, the closest Kingdom to the Wall – are not going to put aside their own pettiness to help themselves, then they clearly don’t believe that ARMAGGEDON is coming. So why exactly is Dany, all the way in the South, after years of Exile in Essos supposed to believe in something that the North are obviously not taking seriously?

Meh. I loathe people like him who "know better" but still do the wrong thing.

We know that because we're the audience and we get to be right behind his shoulder in all his previous scenes. All Dany has is his word on this. For all she knows, he's asking her to fix a problem he started when he was on the Wall. And yeah, I'm going to bring up that dirty word - fanfiction - and say this is exactly where this "adaptation" shows it ass. Dany is a Targaryen and she's had Targaryen dreams and visions of this Approaching Doom. The show even pays homage to that during her sojourn in the House of the Undying. But somewhere along the line, D & D lost track of their continuity. Considering that they can't even remember that Missandei mentioned the Prophecy of the Prince/Princess that Was Promised in the last episode, maybe we can't blame them. Jon could also mention Aemon Targaryen - you know, Dany's Great-Great-Uncle and Jon's mentor as someone who took this threat seriously. You know, establish a common ground. But we don't have any of this. We have Jon waltzing into Dragonstone and asking Dany to postpone her own war and loan out her dragons and armies based on his word. He is insisting that this War takes precedence above everything else BUT he won't bend the knee to get her much needed help. LOL. LOL! So Dany should be the Protector of Jon's Kingdom, is that what you're arguing? It doesn't work that way. Dany isn't dismissing his claims. She's asking him to bend the knee to prove them. IF Jon's claims of ARMAGGEDON were serious - why is he so insistent on not doing what he needs to get her help? On the one hand, he's telling her that her own Throne is not as important as this War ---- but his Crown is? Gee, I wonder why Dany isn't taking him seriously?

Not at all. Jon is asking Dany to commit her forces - people who followed her to Westeros to fight for the throne - to fight an yet unseen threat. Dany is willing to do that - but in return she wants his assurance that after it is over, the North is part of the 7K and not fighting Dany for independence. There should be give and take on both sides. Or please. By that logic, Jon is the one doing the extortion. He's the one who came to Dragonstone asking for her dragons and army or ARMAGEDDON! What people deliberately keep misunderstanding is that Jon bending the knee is a condition for Dany's help, not the other way around. If she's not the Queen of the Seven Kingdoms, including the North, she has not obligation to help him fight the War. If he wants her help, this is the price he pays. It would be a different matter if Dany was duty-bound to help Jon, but she's not. Heck, he's not even negotiating. He's not offering to ally with her to fight Cersei. He's telling her to abandon her own war to fight his own. For all this talk about Dany's entitlement, Jon is the one who marched into Dragonstone and felt he was entitled to her dragons and her army, in exchange for nothing.

I'm sure it's Cersei. Varys seems to be asking Tyrion to get Cersei to see reason, probably because of the looming WW threat or maybe even to stop Dany from getting madder and unleashing her dragons on the Red Keep. Let me add here that it's beyond irritating that the only thing stopping Dany from a definitive win is her own "goodness" and that with each moment that she shows Cersei "mercy", Cersei is buying armies and building spiders and becoming more and more of a threat to her. What is beyond the pale about Sansa is that she's advocating for the same kind of exile that was inflicted on her when she was held prisoner in King's Landing and couldn't return to Winterfell. She is asking that these children be punished for their fathers's disloyalty, the same way that Joffrey and Cersei punished her for Ned and Robb. But, of course, when Sansa punishes children she's "Smart" while Jon is "Foolish" to show mercy. When Dany punishes full-grown men who raised an army to mutineer, murder and rob an old woman, Dany is crazy. Anyone who seriously thought that Dany was going to burn Jon because he didn't bend the knee has not been watching this show.