GoT Finale
May. 21st, 2019 01:20 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alley_skywalkerWell damn. You know, I have people on my dash and RL circle whose opinions vary on the finale. Some hate it some are satisfied with it. It had the same pacing issues of the second half of the season, maybe even the entire season. Really, there should have been 9 seasons not 8. But I also heard so much crap about this episode that I expected some complete other level of badness from it. And actually…..I enjoyed it. It wasn’t amazing or anything but I felt really satisfied at the end of it. I came away from 8.5 feeling kind of underwhelmed and like I really needed time to process but this episode…. given that one ep was all we were going to get to wrap things up? It worked for me in the large strokes.
So things....
- Tyrion finding Jaime (and Cersei) and breaking down was tragic and emotional. (And if anything ruined it for me it was having read beforehand people making jokes about how not enough of the construction had collapsed, how there were too few bricks on top of them, “if only they had stood a little to the left haha,” etc. So I was distracted the whole time thinking about, were there too few bricks? And you know what, there really weren’t, not unless you wanna get super nitpicky about it. And people have done this to even the best of scenes/episodes/shows. Some people just can’t be chill about anything for 3 seconds and need to rip it apart.)
- The scene with Dany giving her dark speak was gorgeous – the delivery, the atmosphere, the imagery. That shot with the wings behind her – damn. Could we have used a couple more episodes to soak up villain!Dany darkness? Yea. I mean, I never said that I liked the pacing in this season. The pacing is really what’s taking the emotional punch out of a lot of things.
- I actually liked the conversation between Tyrion and Jon. Jon needed that push, though he was already struggling. And I like how what seemed to tip him over was the thought of his sisters.
- The Jon/Dany scene and him stabbing her and then Drogon carrying her away may have been a little melodramatic fantasy but I still liked it. It had a really nice touch with Dany finally getting to see the iron throne and the music and her talking about her childhood.
- (It was kinda off with Drogon burning the iron throne and not turning on Jon. On one hand, it’s like, well he didn’t see Jon stab Daenerys, he wouldn’t have known. How smart can a dragon be? But then his destruction of the iron throne very specifically seemed hyper-intelligent. But eh, dragons are this mythical, almost symbolic sort of thing. I’m willing to give it a pass.)
- The king-choosing:
- Ok, yes, it’s corny. But fuck it. It was a neat enough way to tie things up, and I think most of the people there had been through enough and seen enough tyranny that I buy that they’d see it as a good idea. And Tyrion’s line to Grey Worm about hereditary monarchy being the wheel Dany wanted to break was a good way to make him feel like he was getting something out of all of it.
- Why would Grey Worm let them choose a ruler? I actually think it made reasonable sense. The unsullied followed Dany and to an extent Grey Worm. Their training, etc, is such that it’s unlikely that any of them were like…going to make a bid for leadership. And Grey Worm doesn’t strike me as someone who would want to be king himself. He never wanted to stay in Westeros. He was only there for Dany, well Dany is gone. He cared about what was done about Tyrion and Jon only because they were complicit in betraying Daenerys, but that’s about it. I can see how otherwise he would be like, yah ya’ll can figure your shit out yourselves. I’m out. If I was him, I’d probably want out of there too.
- I actually like this chosen king thing. As jarring as it was to see everyone laughing at Sam when he proposed Democracy it would have been weirder for all these nobles to suddenly be like “yea that sounds like a good idea!”
- Bran is an odd choice for King. But out of the remaining players… Davos would be the only other meaningful option, but no one was going to elect him xD I suppose I would have liked it more if the kingdom just split up into individual kingdoms, but barring that…
- It was weird for Dorne to not jump at the chance for independence. But their new prince doesn’t look very savvy, lol. Although I can see both him and Yara making a bit for this later on. Sansa felt able to make her demand right there and then because she is, after all, his sister.
- Sure, I would have loved to see a more realistic political struggle here. Yet again, the pacing problems bite. We would have needed another season for all of that.
- ETA: the one thing I did genuinely hate was the whole Bran the Broken thing. OK, I get Westeros is ableist but do we really need to take it that far?
- Yara is nothing if not loyal, damn girl. But I’m sill sad we didn’t get to see her reaction to finding out Theon is dead :/
- Everyone is like “what even is the night’s watch now?? Lol how stupid.” But I def can see it just transforming into a far-North colony where people get sent into permanent exile. Kind of like how people got sent to Siberia in Imperial Russia. It is true that that would be an odd arrangement with the North being independent, but the North has criminals to and I don’t think Sansa would mind Jon being sent there instead of dying, regardless of whose territory it is. And hey, everyone thought the white walkers were gone forever last time too xD
- Grey Worm letting Tyrion go for the sake of “spending his life making up for his mistakes” IS kinda off. I’ll agree with that. I could spin it, but, yea it wasn’t terribly convincing. Up until a couple episodes ago I could buy it easier, but he’s just been so bloody vicious lately…
- I really like the symmetry of Jaime’s story starting with being the Kingslayer and ending with “Died protecting his queen.” <33
- The small council scene is a little silly but also really fun?? Everyone looks pretty content. Of course having Bronn on the small council would be kind of disaster lol, but hey, a Lannister always pays his debts and there were a LOT of debts to pay. Maybe he should have been something other than master of coin though lol. And I bed Bran wants a master of whisperers so he doesn’t have to do the mundane day to day spying himself. (Like I don’t think his powers work in the way where he just KNOWS things, he has to actively do something.)
- QUEEN IN THE NORTH! I’ve been waiting for this for my girl!
- There was so much bitching about everyone’s ending but I actually found them perfectly satisfying and appropriate. Tyrion as Hand (he never wanted ultimate power, but position and respect which had been denied him before), Sam as maester, Brienne and Pod as knights, Jon north of the wall/at the wall (where he’d always wanted to be and, imo, would be happiest), Sansa as queen in the north, and Arya traveling the world (which I always thought was what she’d want to do. I could never imagine Arya coming and just sitting around in Winterfell or w/e. Arya never wanted domesticity).
- So, honestly, I don’t even know what people mean by everyone getting an awful ending. It’s not awful at all. Sure, it’s not some traditional happily ever after where everyone is married and has three thousand babies. And you know what? Fucking Good. It’s so exhausting to see the same thing in almost every major media – everyone (who’s a good guy MC anyway) gets a sugary HEA and that HEA always looks about the same. For once I’m seeing an ending that feels relatable but also hopeful for the surviving characters. Arya get to explore, Sansa gets to rule (it’s bittersweet bc her family is scattered, but it’s not tragic damnit. She can make friends, fall in love, have a kid – jesus ppl lighten up), everyone in King’s Landing seems pretty content – no grand romances but SO WHAT?? (And Sam and Gilly are married with kids. Brienne had a moment of mourning for Jaime but her shutting the book seemed to say that she was going to move on, be ok, and live her best life.) Jon seems to have it worst, but does he? He’s got Tormund and Ghost and, again, I feel like Jon always fit in best at the wall/in the far North.
- The most illogical thing about this episode was the number of Dothraki. I could buy some of them surviving the BoW but there were waaaaay too many of them, lol.
