S08.E06: The Iron Throne

[screamin]

4 minutes ago, MrsR said:

 Well, actually that is correct. You have to factor in the garrisons that were at Dragonstone. Dany would not have left her home castle unprotected.

Stannis did, IIRC. Dragonstone has a strategic value due to location, but it's a barren rock otherwise.

[MrsR]

2 hours ago, Bannon said:

It takes six weeks to get from Winterfell to KL.

Actually it took a month. And that's the King's entourage and they would have toured their Lord subjects. Staying three days with the Tully's, one day with the Frey's etc.

It probably took the Hound and Arya a week.

Edited May 29, 2019 by MrsR

[Umbelina]

6 hours ago, Nashville said:

Depends totally upon the numbers involved - i.e., the ratio of Westeros fighters to foreigners.  The Unsullied are an elite group of fighters, to be sure; even the best can be beaten by an inferior force, though, if the inferior force has numbers sufficient to overwhelm.  Say on average, each individual Unsullied can kill 20 Westerosi before becoming a casualty themself.  Great numbers to to be sure - but if the Unsullied are outnumbered 30-to-1 and are swarmed, they’re still going to lose in the end.

Well there were "millions of people" in King's Landing alone.  So we can easily surmise that there are still many millions of people throughout Westeros.  NONE of whom want to be invaded, let alone ruled by Dothraki.

So people would fight.  Not because of KL, but because a roaming band of skilled, ruthless, murdering, raping, pillaging Dothraki is not something anyone on that continent would want.  Ever.

Perhaps the stupid pills the showrunners had everyone eat this season are all gone now, since they were only needed for a break-neck speed to the end?  If so, everyone in that dragon pit brought their armies with them, because they damn well know Dothraki and Unsullied were still in KL.

5 hours ago, Lokiberry said:

Remember when Drogo fell off his horse and his khalasar fucked off with a new leader? They didn't even stick around for the funeral. The Dothraki turn on their leaders if they show weakness, and getting shanked by her boyfriend was weakness. 

The Unsullied may honor Dany's memory, but the Dothraki stopped caring about her before her body was even cold. 

As was said earlier, Grey Worm and Missy were already out of there.

It's sad that though everyone says Dany freed them, it wasn't really true.  From childhood they have been programmed to be killing machines who follow orders.  Real freedom would have involved training them for other things, farming, banking, sailing, fishing, whatever...  Dany "freed them" for one reason.  To continue the same old life, only this time for her.

4 hours ago, izabella said:

I see the Unsullied as an army like the Golden Company.  They were a slave army, so not paid nor free to walk away, but they were just an army to do someone's bidding and not for any other reason.  That's what they were raised for, and that's why they existed - the slaver made money selling them to people who wanted armies.  Dany freed them, but then they agreed to fight to help her conquer Westeros, which is still not something they would have chosen to do without her wanting to conquer.  And like the Golden Company, they had no dog in this fight except for pay/as Dany's willing army.

Completely agree about the Dothraki not giving a shit about fallen Khals.  They didn't care about Drogo dying.  A dead Khal just means time for a new Khal, one who can fight and win the role.

Yeah, I do think everyone in Westeros would band together to defeat the Dothraki, as would anyone anywhere. 

Even if they still had 10,000 of them (extremely doubtful) they would be vastly outnumbered, and they aren't stupid.  They would probably take gold and ships and go home to their families.  What have they possibly seen in Westeros to make them want to stay, now that their Khal isn't there to make them stay?  (because, rules)

4 hours ago, MrsR said:

 Well, actually that is correct. You have to factor in the garrisons that were at Dragonstone. Dany would not have left her home castle unprotected. At least a quarter of force may have been left behind.

This was all or nothing.  She may have left a few (but again, the fluctuation numbers of her "armies" make that impossible to guess at.

I do think some of Varys' raven-mails got out.  Another dangling loose end.

Edited May 29, 2019 by Umbelina

[Blakeston]

Once the Westerosi leaders had met and elected Bran, I could realistically imagine the Unsullied and the Dothraki choosing not to go to war over Jon's fate.

What I can't imagine, under any circumstances, is Grey Worm deciding in the immediate aftermath of Dany's death that the Unsullied will hold off on executing Jon until the Westerosi leaders show up and voice their opinions.

[Bali]

2 hours ago, MrsR said:

 Well, actually that is correct. You have to factor in the garrisons that were at Dragonstone. Dany would not have left her home castle unprotected. At least a quarter of force may have been left behind.

My problem with the numbers is that during Dany's "Victory" speech, there were more than there even were before they left for Wesseros.

[proserpina65]

On ‎05‎/‎21‎/‎2019 at 5:55 PM, Zuleikha said:

Except that a relatively short time ago, she was negotiating the alliance with Olenna, Ellaria, and Yara--an alliance that included independence for the Iron Islands.

More like semi-autonomous existence.

On ‎05‎/‎22‎/‎2019 at 2:12 AM, Butless said:

The Nazi imagery was way over the top, and just struck the wrong note, completely.

I actually thought it was extremely effective and appropriate.

Dany had threatened to burn cities to the ground before, without any regard for their inhabitants; she'd been talked out of it by her advisors.  Once she no longer had advisors she trusted, she no longer had anyone to stop her from giving in to her worst impulses.

[proserpina65]

On ‎05‎/‎23‎/‎2019 at 2:47 PM, Zuleikha said:

So when she speaks of liberation, who says she meant massacres? Maybe she literally meant "liberation"--that she and her armies would enforce policies to improve equality and the lot of the small folk in Westeros.

Well, that is exactly what she meant when she said she'd liberated the people of Kings Landing.

[Nashville]

48 minutes ago, proserpina65 said:

Well, that is exactly what she meant when she said she'd liberated the people of Kings Landing.

Only in the sense that ash flies free when a stiff breeze blows through.... 😉

[GodsBeloved]

3 hours ago, Umbelina said:

It's sad that though everyone says Dany freed them, it wasn't really true.  From childhood they have been programmed to be killing machines who follow orders.  Real freedom would have involved training them for other things, farming, banking, sailing, fishing, whatever...  Dany "freed them" for one reason.  To continue the same old life, only this time for her.

This was my gripe every time I saw a post saying Dany freed the Unsullied.

”Freeing” them without giving them a serious chance to choose something other than her simply meant they traded one master for another one. 

[rmontro]

I like Kit Harrington as an actor, and I like the Jon Snow character.  But I just don't understand some of his acting choices this season at all.

First off, I know he was supposed to be conflicted, but I could not tell if he loved Dany or not.  The only reason I think he did is because we were told that he did, but I could not tell that by his actions.

Also, he didn't seem to be very happy about being sent back to the Night Watch.  Did he want to be executed?  I couldn't tell for sure what he wanted.  We know he didn't want to be king, he said that repeatedly.  I don't think he wanted to go back to Winterfell, because he intended Sansa to be Lady of Winterfell.  He surely didn't want to stay in King's Landing.  I could see him going back to the Wildlings, but that's what he ended up doing anyway.  Why so glum about it?

[WatchrTina]

1 hour ago, rmontro said:

Why so glum about it?

I think Jon's somber demeanor speaks to the trauma he's been through.  Even if he's sure that he did the right thing in killing Dany he's also devastated at having to do it.  He's not over that. He may never get over that.  And while he did originally volunteer to join the Night's Watch, this time he is being sent there as a prisoner, under guard.  That has to feel different.

[catrice2]

Trauma, trauma, everyone has been through trauma, but for most of the posters TRAUMA is only an excuse for the Starks...Arya, Jon, Sansa...everyone else just does things because they want to.   Just reading these boards it is kind of sad that this whole show seems to be built on everyone being traumatized in some way... Cersi, Tyrion, Sansa, Jon, Arya, Danny, Greyworm, Missandei as a slave...Theon...I could go on and one.  Who has not been raped, tortured or otherwise....sheesh.... That and the shock value.  I am just not sure a shocking scene equals GREAT writing....

[Zuleikha]

Well, that is exactly what she meant when she said she'd liberated the people of Kings Landing.

Maybe. Or maybe she was referring to liberating them from Cersei.

After all, it doesn't make much sense to view destroying King's Landing as the liberatory act rather than defeating Cersei, and FWIW, the writers say their intention was that Cersei snapped when she saw the Red Keep and impulsively burned things down. While that still leaves her actions as horrible, it doesn't exactly lead to the type of mental break from reality that would lead to intending future massacres no matter how necessary.

And yes, I know the writers almost certainly intended us to process the speech as a call to mass slaughter the way Tyrion interpreted it, but I'm pointing out that what Dany actually said could be understood in a completely different way and yet still be consistent with Dany's stated beliefs, goals, and past actions. Tyrion is a particularly unreliable voice to represent the authorial POV because he's been wrong so much at this point. 

[TheGourmez]

Of all the endings, Bronn as lord of Highgarden and master of coin actually made a lot of sense to me. In his own words a short two episodes earlier, "Who were your ancestors? The ones who made your family rich? Fancy lads in silk? They were fucking cutthroats! That's how all the Great Houses started, isn't it? With a hard bastard who was good at killing people. Kill a few hundred people, they make you a lord."

[proserpina65]

On ‎05‎/‎29‎/‎2019 at 10:28 PM, Zuleikha said:

Maybe. Or maybe she was referring to liberating them from Cersei.

Turns out to be exactly the same thing.  She didn't free most of the population of King's Landing from anything but life.

[Armchair Critic]

I missed a few episodes in the middle seasons so I have been rewatching and in Season 5 Jamie and Bronn talk about how they would like to die and Jamie says he wanted to die in the arms of the woman he loves. So I guess he did go out like he wanted.

[Uncle JUICE]

On 5/31/2019 at 12:02 AM, TheGourmez said:

Of all the endings, Bronn as lord of Highgarden and master of coin actually made a lot of sense to me. In his own words a short two episodes earlier, "Who were your ancestors? The ones who made your family rich? Fancy lads in silk? They were fucking cutthroats! That's how all the Great Houses started, isn't it? With a hard bastard who was good at killing people. Kill a few hundred people, they make you a lord."

Except being master of coin and lord of the reach is an insanely important position. I agree his line makes a decent justification for being a lord, having lands, etc, but being the person in charge of both the economy and the largest food supply? The old Tyrion would never have had that...Bronn would beggar the realm, unless he's shown to have had some economic skills, and what the frig does he know about supply chain logistics in a world with no preservatives besides salt? Tyion would certainly have made him a lord, but probably of someplace with far less strategic importance, that turned cloak against the Targaryens. Something on like the Horn Hill level of house. If Bronn doesn't like it, then execute him. When all this was over, Bronn had literally no leverage on anyone but physical force. After threatening Tyrion and shooting a bolt at his brother, if this was the savvy player we knew in season 2, I'd have the chances at even he'd have killed Bronn anyway. 

[Bali]

19 minutes ago, Uncle JUICE said:

Except being master of coin and lord of the reach is an insanely important position. I agree his line makes a decent justification for being a lord, having lands, etc, but being the person in charge of both the economy and the largest food supply? The old Tyrion would never have had that...Bronn would beggar the realm, unless he's shown to have had some economic skills, and what the frig does he know about supply chain logistics in a world with no preservatives besides salt? Tyion would certainly have made him a lord, but probably of someplace with far less strategic importance, that turned cloak against the Targaryens. Something on like the Horn Hill level of house. If Bronn doesn't like it, then execute him. When all this was over, Bronn had literally no leverage on anyone but physical force. After threatening Tyrion and shooting a bolt at his brother, if this was the savvy player we knew in season 2, I'd have the chances at even he'd have killed Bronn anyway. 

*sigh* I really miss smart Tyrion.

[Uncle JUICE]

1 hour ago, Bali said:

*sigh* I really miss smart Tyrion.

There is literally zero chance the same Tyrion who figured out Pycelle was feeding Cersei info, the Tyrion who had that memorable S2 E1 exchange with Varys about where power resides, would have put Bronn in this position. I miss him too. And they changed him to an idiot for no reason, really just to hobble Danerys when she got to Westeros. Also, the smart Tyrion would have absolutely learned from the mistake he made in Mereen, understood he DIDN'T understand everything about all politics, and made an adjustment to his plays in subsequent seasons (7 and 8). For zero reason he gets into "she loves her children!" mania. 

I blame his perm. 

ETA the perfect place to have him make this redemption arc is Spoils of War, which is absolutely the turning point of this story's end game (I mean where it went south). 

Edited June 7, 2019 by Uncle JUICE

[WindyNights]

On 5/19/2019 at 7:51 PM, Francie said:

I felt like GRRM was too chicken shit to make Sansa queen of Westeros outright. Hence making the robot kid king instead. 

Bran was always going to be the endgame king. GRRM created ASOIAF when he imagined Bran finding the direwolves in the snow and decided that this kid would be king eventually.

Every other element is then just a growth of Bran’s story.

[slf]

One of the main complaints about the finale that I've never gotten is that the Dothraki would have gotten revenge for Dany's death and fought to see her vision through. The Dothraki were always shown to have mixed feelings about her. The Dothraki didn't believe that khals should marry foreigners or that women could lead. And the Dothraki had as low an opinion of Westerosi in general (mocking their customs, weapons, armor, etc) as the Westerosi did of them. Dany herself was referred to as a "pink-skinned girl" and a "m*****", among other things. But still, she had fire breathing dragons and was fireproof (and had killed all the khals) so they followed her, despite their well-documented misgivings about magic and crossing the sea.

But, y'know, she went from surviving years in Essos with three dragons to losing one before the Battle for Winterfell and another not long after. She was the Mother of Dragons. Dracarys was the last word many Essosi heard before they died. Those dragons were fully 90% of her power, reputation, legacy. Without them she might've died in the red waste, and if she hadn't, she certainly never would have risen to the heights she did. So why people brush aside what their losses would've meant for her is beyond me. She lost two dragons in less than a year in Westeros. That is no small thing.

And just when she's defeated her enemy and taken King's Landing and the iron chair the Dothraki thought nothing of, she went and got shanked. As one of the khals said in Vaes Dothrak about the Dothraki warrior Daario beat to death, "Aggo belonged to my khalasar. He served me well. He got his head smashed in by a rock. Fuck Aggo." Like, how embarrassing. He got his head smashed in with a rock. That's not even a dignified death, not that the Dothraki respect the defeated no matter how they fall (as others have pointed out). So why on earth would the Dothraki give a single solitary fuck about the pink-skinned girl who lost most of her dragons (the third having flown off to who knows where) and got herself stabbed by a man in a 'steel dress'? They wouldn't. They didn't benefit from her anymore. They only followed the strong and the dead are as weak as it gets. 

Most of the Essosi weren't allowed to be fully developed people. They were for the most part props in Dany's story. But they did have a culture, a way of life the show was always consistent about, and their final act (of not giving a fuck) was true to that. Dany had no personal loyalty from the Dothraki because they were just another people she brought to heel with fire and blood.

So the idea that they should have fallen to their knees weeping over her death, for me, is skeevy.

Edited July 22, 2019 by slf

[plurie]

Exactly. The Dothraki line of succession is whoever kills the Khal becomes the next Khal. So Jon killing Dani wouldn't make them mad at Jon, it would make them loyal to him.

[Brn2bwild]

Supposedly the script is available to view on the Emmy site, but every time I try a link, it either (1) demands that I sign in or (2) takes me to the main page where I can't find the script.  Anyone else have this problem?

[MrsR]

The script was removed because of all the negativity.

[Brn2bwild]

49 minutes ago, MrsR said:

The script was removed because of all the negativity.

That's funny. 😆

[Smad]

On 8/3/2019 at 11:03 PM, Brn2bwild said:

Supposedly the script is available to view on the Emmy site, but every time I try a link, it either (1) demands that I sign in or (2) takes me to the main page where I can't find the script.  Anyone else have this problem?

You can find plenty of excerpts online. Heck, Jon and Sansa have been memed to death already.

[Humbugged]

On 5/21/2019 at 2:38 PM, Nashville said:

I don’t see what all the confusion is about; whether Sansa ever remarries or not, the Stark name will now live on.  Or have y’all already forgotten Sansa is now Queen of the North?  

At this point it doesn’t really matter if Sansa gets knocked up by a particularly well-hung stable boy, and spits out a little bastard nine months later; all Sansa has to do is take a page out of Dany’s playbook a la Gendry, and abracadabra!  - said bastard is now declared by the Queen to be a legitimate Stark, and heir to all the family holdings.

Well, that’s kinda the thing which eventually tripped up Dany.  In the beginning (with the Unsullied, and the first few towns’ worth of slaves she liberated) Dany gave the newly liberated the freedom to choose whether or not to follow her - and they either chose to do so, or were free to go their own way.

Once Dany got to Westeros she stopped asking, though, and any semblance of a choice ceased to exist; you either fell in line behind Dany, or you became the next Dragon’s Bad Breath Blue Plate Special.  

In DanyLand freedom was an option for everybody in the world - except her own subjects.

And how is this unusual as that is exactly who happened to the Mormonts .

When Jeor left to join the Watch Maege  took the family name as the Lady and Lyanna was also a Mormont no matter who her had was

[seacliffsal]

Just rewatched season 8 and the finale.  I found it very striking that four Starks survived (including Jon) and they ended up leading in different realms-Arya with new discoveries West of Westeros, Sansa at Winterfell, Bran at King's Landing, and Jon North of the Wall.  So Ned's children were the winners of the war and will lead into the next generations.  Well done Ned.

[GallwayGirl]

On 5/29/2019 at 1:42 PM, Umbelina said:

It's sad that though everyone says Dany freed them, it wasn't really true.  From childhood they have been programmed to be killing machines who follow orders.  Real freedom would have involved training them for other things, farming, banking, sailing, fishing, whatever...  Dany "freed them" for one reason.  To continue the same old life, only this time for her.

THIS!

This is what I was thinking as she was blathering on about them being freed. No, they were programmed. They knew nothing else. They just transferred their allegiance to whomever controlled/owned (after all, she did offer a lot of money for them before burning the masters) them, much like a machine.

[Skooma]

On 5/19/2019 at 10:27 PM, Leroux said:

I was sort of hoping for some remorse on Daenerys' part, some acknowledgment that what she did was horrible on all levels, but not one ounce of it, none. Her grandiose discourse was scary as shit.

She believed her own delusions and thought she was the only one who knew better what was right for the people of the whole world. 

She was dangerous and needed to die. I am glad Jon had the courage to do it. 

I totally agree.  Daenery sounded like Hitler by the end and certainly executed her own holocaust before being taken down.  And her backstory throughout slowly lead up to this too.  All the signs were there since she took over coming out of that egg hatching fire.

Jon, as usually, was slow as ever and talked a lot of rot to Tyrion at first but finally did the right thing.

Loved that Sam tried to start democracy.  Thanks for the try, Sam.  Alas, still some centuries away even in fantasy land.

Breianne was too kind in writing in the book but she always has been one of the most noble souls.  Glad she has a major role to play in the future of fantasy land.

Loved the choice of Bran as king.  Jon was never suited to rule.  Doesn't have the mind for it and he will prefer being with the free folk instead.  As will Arya out exploring the world.

Bran was by far the best choice available.  Finally someone on the throne who hasn't lusted after power.

Also loved my favorite, Tyrion, survived and is back as Hand but FINALLY for a good ruler.  Coolest small counsel ever.  Bronn with the treasury (Lannisters pay their debt and Tyrion did), funny as all get out. 

Just wish Varys was still alive to see he was right and have been part of it ... and to tell Tyrion "I told you so."

 

Edited November 21, 2023 by Skooma