TarotQueen

I feel like the only ahole in the whole thread, and I'm late anyway, but Deepti has a very weird nose. None of it goes together. Like from the front, it's not pretty but you imagine what it would look like in profile, and then it's worse there too. I don't know how to describe it except it's literally too round and circular. The bridge is too thin to go with the bottom, but that might work, except there's no flare to her nostrils to make it more distinct. It's too big to be snub, but not curved enough to be ski slope. It's broad, but again, not flared or interesting. It almost looks like she constantly just got hit in the nose and the swelling is still ongoing. I don't know ... it's distracting. I look at her in some of these episodes and it's almost the only thing I can focus on, how really ugly I think it is. And she is a great person! Smart, funny, cool. But this makes me sympathetic to Shake, even if this is not his particular issue with her appearance. She has a beautiful smile though, and while her eyes are pretty small, they have a sort of charm to them because they're very round and I don't almost anime-ish. Since I am not an anime devotee (read dork lol) my reference here is like Speed Racer or Trixie for her eyes. None of her sisters seemed to have this sort of odd nose shape, though I admit, I was just watching for content and didn't try to do a close review or anything. TBH, and I don't say this lightly, but if it were my face, I might think of plastic surgery for it. Nonethless, I wish her the utter best, she's a great person. But even though I wish I didn't, I sympathize with Shake on this. I'm a straight woman, and it's hard for me to look at her without thinking this. I can't imagine needing to be turned on by her.

The male talent this season is so underwhelming they're fortunate for the pods. I mean, I don't think Jarette is cute in the face, but his features are proportional, and so is his body and they are proportional to each other, so I guess that puts him out in front. And I liked his personality. Until he decided to tell Lyanna about his disappointment with Mallory. That was just unneccessary and real a-hole thing to do. An "I want comfort for my disappointment and you'll listen to me" move instead of "I'm thinking of you because I care about you," move. She brought Mallory up, but he could and should have left it at, "Yeah, we did have a connection, but I think I've figured some things out and am ready to move away from that."

I don't like the Tyrion is a Targ theory either. I know it isn't their section, but I'd find the idea of the Lannister twins being Aerys' more interesting: a genetic explanation for both their incest and Cersei's overall fucked uppedness as a person, more symmetry with Tywin (despising his only real son while he fawns over someone else's) and even Joanna's shock at whatever touching she found her young kids doing with each other (horrible not just because they are sister and brother, but because she knows it expresses the truth of their heritage and the pain that represents for her) etc. I just hope we still get a full set of books to know for sure though.

I'm not nearly talented enough to rewrite the season I really wanted to see, but there are little things that come to mind. If Dany had to go crazy on the city and become the big bad, there needed to be both more general build up and a more dramatic instance of the smallfolk of KL going out of their way to piss her off/hurt her feelings. Jimmy Macram posted this in his reaction video, so full credit there, but why not have a group of residents cheer after Cersei takes Missandei's head off? Then Dany would have reason to "make it personal" (per D&D) towards the small folk. She absolutely should have torched at least part of the Red Keep trying to get at Cersei. Give us a couple of eye contact shots between them, some direct effort at each other during the main battle. That she never really goes after Cersei is the most fucked up part of the whole finale to me. I mean, I can stretch it to see her going ham on the rest of the city, but you didn't even try for the bitch that was trying for you? Not even one time? Petty af! Jorah should have lived, and he should have also become dubious of her with Tyrion and Varys. That would have been an isolation that I would have found more moving her towards the cray she ended up expressing. Maybe he wouldn't ever outright betray her, but kind of shame her like Tyrion did afterwards, or …. something. There were other deaths that could have gone down at WF besides him to keep that real. I wouldn't have made any drama out of aunt-nephew coupling. It was boring, where I think Jon getting to spend the time on the revelation of his Targ heritage would have been more worthwhile. In fact I would have thought Jon's ultimate betrayal was a lot more stirring if he and Dany had stayed sexually/romantically involved, and he had needed to kill her while he was still in love with her, instead of just with a sort of chivalric, courtier's love for their queen. Jonathan at Gay of Thrones pretty much summarized that Dany torched the city because, "Jon wouldn't give her that nephew D" which is dumb and sexist but I also laughed my ass off at it, because it's not a totally unreasonable interpretation of the timing. This would also have given Jon a fucking point in the episodes before he kills Dany, since they made him almost useless most of this season. Have him be sincerely in love/lust, but also scared of her … more like Tyrion but with him being "successful" and not with him having already given up on that aspect with her. Make the War with the WW longer and in more smaller battles, and at least hint at wtf they truly are/want from humanity. We know it's got to be more complicated than genocide because we saw they were bribed in the past, by Craster. You don't have to be GRRM himself, but give us some clues, maybe through Bran or something. Agree with others that Jon riding the dragon in battle as a heat of the moment thing would have been far more badass than the jaunt with Dany. That's it for right now.

If Jon does kill Dany, an interesting interaction would be the aftermath between him and Tyrion. Tyrion loves Dany right now, true, but he also knows what it is to be compelled to kill the woman you love. Of course, there might not be enough time for that, or the writers might prioritize differently. But I would like to see a few lines between them about it.

Loved most of it. Shuddered a little at Arya & Gendry; it just wasn't hot and they have pretty decent chemistry so I have to put it down to the dialgoue. There had to have been a less awkward way to bring about the same ends.

I thought it was a fairly solid opening episode. Bonnett does look like Heath Ledger, but I never saw that similarity back when Speelers on Dowton Abbey so I think it’s the hair. Seems like everyone has a distinct feeling on this but count me in the hate for Ray Charles “America the Beautiful” being used as it was. I found the anachronism jarring, not charming. Do the sets look kind of cheap compared to prior seasons to anyone else? Like backdrops where they used to have actual real places, especially outside. It’s not a big problem to me as a viewer but I am wondering if their budget is tightening and what that might mean for the implications of the show.

Nm.

Fred is really high in the Gilead leadership structure. With Nick’s true believer boss dead, I think Serena just killed one of the only people that could have checked Fred if she showed her hand.

I don't know about that. They had a pact with Craster. The book evidence is pretty strong for there having been a pact in the past too, with the whole North sacrificing their unwanted children to keep them at bay. They appear unable to reproduce on their own, so if we take that as a given, there really aren't too many possibilities why they put the heat on humanity now all of a sudden. One is that their lives are like a magical curse that only ends if they wipe us out, and they choose to reproduce in small numbers just to keep themselves up to a fighting weight for the big war. But then why would they have ever gone into dormancy? A second possibility though is that they just want to live, and they can't get enough human babies to do that from just one guy whose fucking his daughters. Or vengeance on us I guess, but wouldn't they still want their race to survive to enjoy it? I wonder if the WW don't have some telepathic powers with humans before they employ necromancy on them (which is telepathy too I guess but more specialized). Something that gives them a chance to capture at least some fragmented human thoughts. Not anywhere equal to 3EC but tilting the scale a little back their way. The show has been clear that the NK is compelled by Jon Snow. A lot of viewers assume that it's magical: the NK senses the mix of Stark warg/greenseer blood with Targaryen dragon rider/prophecy blood. But if they can read people's minds at their death, what if it is just so simple as they know he is a 'bastard' and should have become one of them? I mean we know he isn't a bastard, but if all of our background knowledge of Jon came from the people he knew who were killed by WW/AOTD, then we'd still think he was one. Or it could be both: that they sense the magical bloodlines but are also fucking pissed such a powerful bastard didn't get offered up to them as a baby. TLDR: I think there could be a pact if everyone started sacrificing their unwanted babies again.

I get this viewpoint, I really do. But otoh, once Jon and Dany was a confirmed thing and baby anvils were a confirmed thing, how could anyone not anticipate Dany being likely to die in childbirth as a part of the world building? Both grandmothers of a Jon/Dany baby died in childbirth too and Dany has already had some types of vague reproductive health issues. I mean wouldn't this sort of fast, loose predictive genetics be in line with GRRMs style? It seems like book readers at least would have already prepped themselves for the possibility, or that they ought to have.

True nuff but Peter Dinklage is nothing to overlook either ... yeah I know terrible but I couldn't resist ?

This is so weird and probably the last place in the world D&D or GRRM are drawing from for inspiration, but Book Sansa's obsession with courtly love and songs have occasionally struck a note of Maryann Dashwood in Sense and Sensibility with me. So given that ...

I think besides opening the very interesting discussion about consent up, that Eden is also probably intended as something like a time marker to show us that nearly one generation has already been brainwashed by the Gileadean society at this point.

Yeah there is definitely something distinctly personal about the Night King's response to Jon. I mean I am sure he ... respects Dany maybe? For her dragons and the power they represent but it is nowhere on the intensity level as with Jon