RobertDeSneero

Daenerys was right: King’s Landing had to burn

I don't think she was asking for independence. He chose not to fight the war that would have been required to keep the North in the Seven Kingdoms. A Stark ruling in the North is a tenet of Northern nationalism. Lyanna Mormont supports Jon as King in the North because he has Stark blood. Sociologically, the North sees itself as distinct, with its unique history, separate religion, and its ethnic heritage coming from the First Men rather than the Andals. There is a notably xenophobic reaction when the foreign Queen comes waltzing into Winterfell with her foreign army. I interpret Sansa as a character who moved away from sympathy for cosmopolitanism and multiculturalism due to her personal experience and towards a stance of nationalism.

Why should viewers be given time to psychologically detach from the character?

I'd lose a lot of respect for him as an artist if he panders to the point of changing his ending. Plus, it would probably take him twice as long to finish.

Tyrion seemed mostly fine so long as his duties didn't involve military strategy. He had one useful trick at Blackwater and fancied himself a general.

There is no mention of the valonqar in the show. They may have excised that part of the prophesy because they were already looking ahead to having this sort of end for Cersei.

If she is resurrected, maybe she'd be more like Lady Stoneheart.

The Boltons are a bit of a special case, with a long-running rivalry with the Starks. I doubt any of the minor houses of the North have the power and resources to consider what you suggest. And I think you underestimate the power of Northern nationalism.

If they are aiming higher, it would be that they want to be King in the North in place of Sansa. Dany doesn't help that goal.

The North was unified in its desire to be independent of the Iron Throne. How does an alliance with Dany further that goal?

As Lord of Highgarden, Bronn is now rich. He's basically there to loan money to the Crown. And maybe to force people to pay their taxes.

The problem is that they had the Night King un-build that wall at the end of season 7. If the final battle is supposed to be at Winterfell, how many episodes are you going to take to get there? I think your plan requires moving the wight hunt to Season 8, which would leave Season 7 pretty thin and in need of filler.

It depends on how big of a blow it was for the Tyrells to see House Tarly defect to the Lannister side. Easter Eggs aren't supposed to be major things.

Mentioning elephants was a reward for bookreaders.

Elephants add nothing to the story. Using them would just be stupid fanservice. Ghost isn't a significant character. I wish they'd had wights tear him apart so I didn't have to see any more complaining about him. I think they cut the season down to six episodes (with a runtime equivalent to eight episodes) because they were spending a ton of time and money. This season took longer to shoot than previous seasons and they spent more per episode than previous seasons. They spent a ton of money on two big battles, so I don't see this season as cutting corners.

LaSalle has always been the most borng character. I keep having to Google him to remember his name.

That's the sort of attitude that gets you killed on this show.

Affecting the past is dangerous. Bran ruined Hodor's life. After that experience, I expect him to be reluctant to do anything that might change the past. I don't think we need an expository scene where he explains that. I don't expect Martin to give hard rules for how Bran's powers work. This is an author who avoids giving specific dates and distances so that he can avoid getting bogged down in the details of whether travel times are feasible.

First off is that I would want to be true to Martin's vision. The story starts off with a kid who in many books would turn out to be the heroic protagonist, but he gets pushed out a window and crippled. Then, Ned Stark looks like a hero and maybe he gets sent to the Wall, where he rejoins his bastard and eventually they are the heroes of this tale, bit he gets his head chopped off. Then we have Robb, the young hero avenging his father, but the the Red Wedding happens. At that point, you can't top the Red Wedding and you've pulled the rug out from under your reader so many times, so you ease up on that trick. You build up Jon and Dany. You get readers emotionally invested in them. Then, once they have forgotten, you do it to them again. Dany, who you've been trained to expect is the future Queen turns out to not be the hero you were expecting. She burns King's Landing. The Red Wedding was a traumatic experience for readers and viewers. It made fans angry. It made some quit. Dark Dany is supposed to be even worse. I also agree with Martin about the importance and value of The Scouring of the Shire in The Lord of the Rings. This story has been partially about getting him to a place where he can do his variation on that concept. So, I would retain the general idea of a final season split in half between the war against the Night King, culminating in a final battle at Winterfell, and the resumption of the game of thrones and the fight for the Iron Throne. I very much like the suspenseful aspect of not really seeing the army of the dead in action until they attack Winterfell, so I would keep that part of the story. I would have broken the battle up into two episodes. The first ends with the dead crossing the fire moat and attacking the walls. I would add another episode before the march to King's Landing. I would have Dany accept Sansa's advice to rest her troops before heading south, only to blame that delay for giving her enemies time to prepare the naval ambush at Dragonstone. So, my broad outline looks like this: Episode 1 and 2 remain the same. Episode 3 is the first half of the Battle of Winterfell, ending with the army of the dead reaching the walls. Episode 4 is the second half, ending with the defeat of the Night King. Episode 5 is the aftermath, ending with Euron's fleet surprising Dany and killing one of her dragons. Episode 6 is the Dany's reaction to that defeat, ending with the death of Missandei. Episode 7 is the first half of the Battle of King's Landing, ending with Dany destroying Euron's fleet. Episode 8 is the second half of the battle, with Dany torching King's Landing. From there, we go to the endgame. Dany is like she is the only country with nuclear weapons. So, to take her down, one needs to neutralize her dragon. In the end, I'd have Jon kill Drogon, Dany kill Jon, and someone who is not Arya kill Dany. I lean towards Sansa, with the dialogue about using the pointy end being foreshadowing, or Ser Davos. I like the idea of Sansa doing it to save Tyrion, who Dany should think now is an enemy after he released Jamie. No one sits on the Iron Throne. The Northern secession is ratified. The Seven Kingdoms are separate again.

I think he's been on this trajectory for a few years. He's been less of a hardass and going soft. Honestly, I think Ziva's death affected him and finding her secret office sparked something that made him less able to control himself.

Oliver going through the multiverse and picking up alternate versions of his friends to fight in the Crisis could be a fun romp. This would be where we get Diggle taking his adopted father's name as John Stewart, Green Lantern, a Ragman who hasn't lost his powers, a heroic Malcolm Merlyn, a Robert Queen who spent five years on an island after his son died in a yacht accident before taking up the mantle of Green Arrow.....

Dany is not the Frodo of this story, she's the Aragorn. And Martin wanted to tell a story about what if the character with the arc of hero who becomes King turned out to be something other than a wise and just ruler. She's supposed to be portrayed as someone who you expect to get a typical heroic ending through the fight of the living against the dead because you are conditioned by your exposure to conventions of the genre. Except after the war, things don't go so great and - boom - she turns.

I honestly think that Martin wanted to subvert tropes by creating the first one, although I wouldn't say she is supremely evil. This is a man who was a conscientious objector during Vietnam. This is supposed to be an anti-war series where the action is just brutal. Ultimately, this is a series about politics. Politicians who get the hero edit in real life turn out to be bad. Success is often more about being lucky to be in the right place at the right time and not virtue being rewarded. Breaking the wheel is the new draining the swamp. You promise to do it, but you turn out to be replacing the old guard with more of the same and possibly worse.

My contention is that the evidence that Dany would do what she did is not foreshadowing. I believe that the actual show tells us that she told Tyrion that she planned on burning the city, that he got her to concede that she wouldn't do it if the bells rang, then she decided to do it anyways. Thus, she had already shown that she was willing to attack those that viewers presumably see as innocents. I agree that it is a large gap for her to leap if she goes from bring brutal only towards the guilty to being brutal towards wide swaths of innocents. It is less of a leap if she goes from being willing to burn civilians unless they surrender to being willing to burn civilians even if they surrender.

She doesn't see them as innocents. She points out that innocents in Mereen turned on their masters and liberated the city themselves when she arrived. They don't celebrate her arrival in King's Landing. They don't even celebrate the bells ringing. When that fails to occur, she knows in her heart that they are enemies and not innocents. At least, that's what the explanation should be. I think the show has demonstrated that Dany is capable of being ruthless towards her enemies. Is there any way that the show could convince you that she viewed the common folk as her enemy if they didn't bow down to her without it being out of character? And without you hating that other characters didn't try harder to stop her? If that's not something you can ever accept, then I don't know if this show's ending could ever have made you happy.