# Game of Thrones 8.04 "The Last of the Starks" 5/5/2019 \[Show discussion\] **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [May 5, 2019, 8:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/game-of-thrones-8-04-the-last-of-the-starks-5-5-2019-show-discussion/833524 "2019-05-05T20:44:16Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 13
**Author:** ![asterion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/4da419/32.png) [@asterion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asterion)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2019, 9:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/game-of-thrones-8-04-the-last-of-the-starks-5-5-2019-show-discussion/833524/241 "2019-05-06T21:05:22Z")
The problem Westeros has is that not only has its technology apparently stagnated for hundreds or thousands of years but so has its government and political philosophy. If we set it as approximately equivalent to between the fall of Rome and the start of the Italian Renaissance, maybe further narrowing it down to the High Middle Ages, a lot was going on that never had an equivalent in Westeros. There’s apparently no older known political philosophy like Plato and Aristotle. There’s no equivalent of Anselm or Aquinas. There is one “university” with the Citadel in Oldtown, but it seems like any learning from the maesters doesn’t really spread. There’s definitely nothing like the technology development of the 12th and 13th centuries. ---
**Author:** ![DigitalC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ebca7d/32.png) [@DigitalC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DigitalC)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2019, 9:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/game-of-thrones-8-04-the-last-of-the-starks-5-5-2019-show-discussion/833524/242 "2019-05-06T21:22:00Z")
> [@Slash1972](#): > > Speaking of dragon food, why do they always show rib cages and such from the animals the dragons eat? Are they really going to be picking meat from between bones? Seems like they would be eating the whole goat or sheep or whatever in one bite. They probably shit out the bones. ---
**Author:** ![DrCube](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a3d4f5/32.png) [@DrCube](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrCube)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2019, 9:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/game-of-thrones-8-04-the-last-of-the-starks-5-5-2019-show-discussion/833524/243 "2019-05-06T21:24:00Z")
Just imagine if most of the families who were in charge 8000 years ago were still in charge today? And why would dragons shit? Would you, if you had a powerful incinerator inside your body somewhere? I imagine that dragons’ only waste product is smoke/exhaust burps. ---
**Author:** ![Gorsnak](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gorsnak/32/7587_2.png) [@Gorsnak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gorsnak)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2019, 9:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/game-of-thrones-8-04-the-last-of-the-starks-5-5-2019-show-discussion/833524/244 "2019-05-06T21:30:41Z")
> [@DrCube](#): > > Just imagine if most of the families who were in charge 8000 years ago were still in charge today? > > And why would dragons shit? Would you, if you had a powerful incinerator inside your body somewhere? I imagine that dragons’ only waste product is smoke/exhaust burps. Just try doing a conservation of energy calculation on how much they need to eat to spew out all those flames… ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2019, 9:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/game-of-thrones-8-04-the-last-of-the-starks-5-5-2019-show-discussion/833524/245 "2019-05-06T21:31:51Z")
> [@DrCube](#): > > And why would dragons shit? Would you, if you had a powerful incinerator inside your body somewhere? I imagine that dragons’ only waste product is smoke/exhaust burps. To be biologically pedantic ;), just burning food wouldn’t produce the kind of energy needed to run muscles. It might work for a steam-powered robot, but not an animal. ---
**Author:** ![iamthewalrus\_3](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/258eb7/32.png) [@iamthewalrus\_3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iamthewalrus_3)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2019, 9:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/game-of-thrones-8-04-the-last-of-the-starks-5-5-2019-show-discussion/833524/246 "2019-05-06T21:47:02Z")
> [@Snarky\_Kong](#): > > Is Cersei on the throne ostensibly as a Barratheon? If so, then Gendry would be next I think. If she’s on it as a Lannister, then it would be Jaime then Tyrion. Originally, maybe. But now I think Cersei is on the throne as Cersei. She decided that when she told Jaime she would tell the world he was the father of her child. ---
**Author:** ![Bijou\_Drains](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bijou_drains/32/2814_2.png) [@Bijou\_Drains](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bijou_Drains)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2019, 9:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/game-of-thrones-8-04-the-last-of-the-starks-5-5-2019-show-discussion/833524/247 "2019-05-06T21:47:24Z")
Dany and Jon are both around 30 right? Did either of them ever have any military tactics training? I don’t think so. So they are not exactly Patton and are bound to make mistakes in tactics. ---
**Author:** ![GreysonCarlisle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a87d85/32.png) [@GreysonCarlisle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreysonCarlisle)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2019, 9:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/game-of-thrones-8-04-the-last-of-the-starks-5-5-2019-show-discussion/833524/248 "2019-05-06T21:51:01Z")
> [@Bijou\_Drains](#): > > Dany and Jon are both around 30 right? Did either of them ever have any military tactics training? I don’t think so. So they are not exactly Patton and are bound to make mistakes in tactics. Dany, probably not. But Jon was raised by the King in the North, so I’m sure he got some training studying old battles or whatever. ---
**Author:** ![DigitalC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ebca7d/32.png) [@DigitalC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DigitalC)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2019, 9:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/game-of-thrones-8-04-the-last-of-the-starks-5-5-2019-show-discussion/833524/249 "2019-05-06T21:54:57Z")
> [@Bijou\_Drains](#): > > Dany and Jon are both around 30 right? Did either of them ever have any military tactics training? I don’t think so. So they are not exactly Patton and are bound to make mistakes in tactics. Early 20s for both. ---
**Author:** ![ISiddiqui](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/97f17d/32.png) [@ISiddiqui](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ISiddiqui)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2019, 9:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/game-of-thrones-8-04-the-last-of-the-starks-5-5-2019-show-discussion/833524/250 "2019-05-06T21:55:34Z")
> [@GreysonCarlisle](#): > > Dany, probably not. But Jon was raised by the King in the North, so I’m sure he got some training studying old battles or whatever. \*Warden of the North And maybe not? I mean history lessons sure, but Jon was considered the bastard of Winterfell. Robb if anyone would have gotten that sort of training as the Heir to Winterfell. Robb was also pretty good at tactics - of course his battles happened before the show left the source material. ---
**Author:** ![Bijou\_Drains](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bijou_drains/32/2814_2.png) [@Bijou\_Drains](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bijou_Drains)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2019, 10:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/game-of-thrones-8-04-the-last-of-the-starks-5-5-2019-show-discussion/833524/251 "2019-05-06T22:04:22Z")
they never talk about any type of formal schooling for the average person do they? I know Sam went to study at the citadel. Also I recall a scene where Bran was learning at home about the various families and areas. ---
**Author:** ![DigitalC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ebca7d/32.png) [@DigitalC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DigitalC)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2019, 10:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/game-of-thrones-8-04-the-last-of-the-starks-5-5-2019-show-discussion/833524/252 "2019-05-06T22:05:31Z")
Average person like peasants? hah no, they don’t get any schooling. ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2019, 10:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/game-of-thrones-8-04-the-last-of-the-starks-5-5-2019-show-discussion/833524/253 "2019-05-06T22:05:47Z")
WTH, 250 posts by the afternoon after the episode? I cannot catch up with that, I’m sorry. (The rumors of this board’s demise are clearly exaggerated, at least if we get the right topic.) I finished watching the episode and felt pretty good about it–a return to form after the previous episode was mostly a misfire (although I did like the opening and the climax of Arya killing the NK). But then my son hit me with a text message outlining just some of his many objections to the writing of it, and I can’t say as I can really rebut most of his complaints: > [@](#): > > 1. The whole logistics of taking King’s Landing. They wanted the support of the people to turn against Cersei, by starving them? Not to mention that Cersei ALREADY shouldn’t have the support of the people after she fucking blew up the High Sparrow and a lot of other popular religious leaders in the Sept. > > 2. The fact that Dany has the Vale, Dorne, Highgarden, and just about every goddamn house on her side, and Cersei only has Euron and the Golden Company, yet Dany decides to march her depleted forces there right away because “our enemies grow stronger”? How? If anything it’s the other way around lol. > > 3. So let me get this straight. Euron completely was able to sneak attack Dany and her dragons and fleet, despite having aerial scouting, during the daytime, on the water? This makes no sense. Not to mention that Euron was able to accurately shoot Rhaegal high up in the air, reload, shoot him again, reload, and shoot him again…instead of having all the ballistas shoot both dragons as soon as possible? And then they all try to shoot Drogon but miss somehow, despite only one hitting Rhaegal with complete accuracy? Plus according to GRRM, the only way to kill a dragon with a non magic projectile is through the eye, otherwise they would bounce off the scales. This also makes the supposed existential threat to humanity, the Night King, even more pathetic in retrospect as he’s about just as threatening or even less threatening than Euron fucking Greyjoy. > > 4. The Bronn scene was so pointless. So lets pretend that Bronn didn’t grow as a character and hes still a cuttthroat, yeah? Even then, how did he get not only past the gates of Winterfell, but into THE ROOM OF THE HAND OF THE KING, with a FUCKING CROSSBOW? There weren’t any guards holding him up? Seriously? Plus, he holds up Jaime and Tyrion and demands Highgarden, then waltzes out. So many things wrong with this scene. He shoots a warning crossbow bolt, then instantly reloads it. Crossbows should take long enough to reload that Jaime could have punched his face in in time. Secondly, why the fuck should Dany honor Tyrion’s offer? Thirdly, why didn’t Jaime and Tyrion call the guards after Bronn left to chase him down and execute or at least imprison him? > > 5. Jaime. So after that entire redemption arc he’s back with Cersei huh. What a waste. > > 6. Teleportation. This has been a problem since season 7, but characters appearing on one side of the continent in one scene and then on the other the next is maddening. > > 7. You have Arya, an all powerful assassin, and you don’t even think of asking “hey Arya, would you mind sneaking into Kings Landing, killing Cersei, and then wearing her face to surrender and let Dany and her army in? Thanks, with how you got past those thousands of wights and several White Walkers around the Night King we should have this wrapped up by tomorrow morning”. > > 8. See 7 but with Bran. You have the entire knowledge and history of Westeros at your fingertips and someone who can control animals anywhere to spy, yet you do nothing with it. Brilliant. > > 9. Jon being a fucking moron, again. Why does he have to tell his sisters? Ned didn’t tell anybody and he was still.an honorable man right to the end. > > 10. So in negotiations, the exact wrong thing to do is to walk up to enemy artillery’s range and just present yourself. What’s even dumber was that Cersei could have ended the war easily and had her artillery fire on Dany and her dumbass Hand of the King, easily. > > 11. Why is the outside of King’s Landing a desert now? > > 12. Gendry’s bastard name was Waters, not Rivers. > > 13. Who is the “new Prince of Dorne”? All of the Martells are dead. > > 14. So apparently Jon doesn’t give a shit about Ghost since the showrunners completely forgot about him, despite them sharing such a close bond in the first few seasons. How sad ☹ > > 15. Varys being neutered in terms of dialogue, intelligence, and usefulness yet again, pun intended. > > There’s more, but I’m tired. So many shitty things about the show now… The only one I really disputed right off the bat was #5. I think that’s a misdirect: Jaime is going to kill or thwart Cersei, not join her. But that remains to be seen. ---
**Author:** ![GreysonCarlisle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a87d85/32.png) [@GreysonCarlisle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreysonCarlisle)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2019, 10:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/game-of-thrones-8-04-the-last-of-the-starks-5-5-2019-show-discussion/833524/254 "2019-05-06T22:09:09Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > 1. The fact that Dany has the Vale, Dorne, Highgarden, and just about every goddamn house on her side, and Cersei only has Euron and the Golden Company, yet Dany decides to march her depleted forces there right away because “our enemies grow stronger”? How? If anything it’s the other way around lol. I remember thinking that, as well. “No, Dany, from the conversation you _just had_, your enemies are growing weaker!” ---
**Author:** ![DigitalC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ebca7d/32.png) [@DigitalC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DigitalC)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2019, 10:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/game-of-thrones-8-04-the-last-of-the-starks-5-5-2019-show-discussion/833524/255 "2019-05-06T22:11:12Z")
As far as 3 goes, it wasn’t Euron reloading and shooting, the whole fleet had ballistas. As for 13 just because the Martells are dead does not mean someone else can’t be in charge, they said “new prince” not “new Martell”. The rest is pretty dead on though, but honestly we can’t really expect two guys who signed up to do book adaptations to write a satisfying conclusion to one of the greatest fantasy series of all time. Nobody but Martin could do that, and at this point even that is in serious doubt. ---
**Author:** ![asterion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/4da419/32.png) [@asterion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asterion)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2019, 10:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/game-of-thrones-8-04-the-last-of-the-starks-5-5-2019-show-discussion/833524/256 "2019-05-06T22:16:08Z")
The only one I disagree with is Bran. As I’ve said other places, he’s become Dr. Manhattan. With the world safe from the Others, would he even be willing to intervene in any way with the affairs of men from here on out? It would be nice to at least have a short conversation where he’s asked to help and just flatly says no. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2019, 10:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/game-of-thrones-8-04-the-last-of-the-starks-5-5-2019-show-discussion/833524/257 "2019-05-06T22:19:19Z")
I actually like Daeneris’s descent into evil, if that’s in fact what happens. It’s more realistic than, “If only a good person was on the throne, we’d all be happy!” Power corrupts. If you look at the tyrants in history, many of them thought they were doing good. It’s just that when idealism runs up against reality, hard decisions have to made. And those hard decisions can twist a person and make it easier to do more ‘hard’ decisions, until you are starving an entire region intentionally ‘for the Realm’ because you think it will ultimately do less harm than if the entire kingdom went hungry. Murdering people? If they are a threat to the realm, it becomes easy to justify. Doing terrible things to stay in power? You can start justifying that by convincing yourself that if you lose, the next ruler will be worse. Everyone is the hero of their own story. So I could easily see Daeneris, who is now backed into a corner with only one dragon, a much reduced army, her entire advisory staff either dead or perhaps plotting against her, and an unexpected claimant to HER throne, finally cracking and deciding that the only way out of this is to simply burn Cersei and her entire court, even if it means taking out all the people in King’s landing. If she finds out that Varys is having veiled conversations with Tyrion about killing her, who has she got left? Greyworm isn’t a councilor, he’s a guard and military commander. Missandei and Ser Jorah are dead. Jon went from being her love to her rival. Sansa is openly hostile to her. The people she recently saved didn’t show her any kindness, and acted like Jon and Arya were the big saviors, even though Jon was riding a dragon provided by Daeneris was was basically out of the fight for most of it and had no effect on the outcome at all. Daeneris sacrificed most (other than those who died), and gained the least from that battle. You can’t blame her for being bitter, or even for starting to hate the people of Westeros. So I can foresee Daeneris going mad, getting on Drogon, and just burning everything in sight. Maybe it won’t go that way, but it’s now a plausible scenario given what she’s experienced since coming to Westeros. Speaking of Greyworm - if I were betting on his fate, it would be that he is going to die in battle avenging Missandei. He has nothing left to live for. Characters that lose their loved ones like that are often prime candidates for the heroic charge that saves the day but gets them killed. As the show gets more TV-tropy as it goes on, this becomes a likely outcome for him. As for the Parlay scene, I don’t think those ballistas would have been very useful against that group. Ballista do not have explosive bolts. They kill what they hit. In the case of a ship, we can fanwank that flying splinters and such would make them much more devastating. Against troops in a field, not so much. Historically, smaller ballista were used in anti-personnel roles, but you’d have to think firing big lumbering things like that from a kilometer away wouldn’t be that effective against people who can move and scatter. But Tyrion should have been pincushioned. I see no way around that. Cersei wanted him dead, he’s dangerous because he knows a lot that Daeneris can use against Cersei, and it would have made an even bigger statement than just killing an unknown (to Cersei) advisor to the Queen. He’s only alive because of plot armor. There would have been a good way to make that Ballista stuff more believable - they should have put wildfire explosive on the tips of those bolts. But speaking of wildfire - King’s landing is still fully wired up to go boom, right? What happens if a dragon starts strafing the city and hits one of the caches of wildfire? A ‘bittersweet’ ending would be for Daeneris to go mad and start burning things, only to detonate the wildfire and blow everyone up including herself and her dragon. No more Iron Throne, no more King’s landing, and the entire power structure of Westeros changes. The ‘bittersweet’ ending could be Sansa ruling the north as Queen, Gendry perhaps ruling his region as Lord of Storm’s end, Samwell Tarley ruling his family’s region, etc. Westeros becomes a European-like collection of city-states and small countries, and the 'wheel is truly broken. Perhaps someone ruling the region where King’s landing was from Dragonstone (maybe Tyrion), and pretty much everyone else dead. Or Jon goes north beyond the wall to be ‘where he belongs’ which was hammered into us repeatedly in the last episode. Or, they get evidence that there will be a new Night’s King, that the dead will begin rebuilding, and Jon goes back to being Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch and begins rebuilding the wall. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2019, 10:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/game-of-thrones-8-04-the-last-of-the-starks-5-5-2019-show-discussion/833524/258 "2019-05-06T22:24:29Z")
Nitpick: I don’t think Samwell Tarly wants to rule his family’s land. I think he’d be happy to return to the Citadel and spend the rest of his life as a scholar. Perhaps Dany’s reward to him was going to be to put him in charge there? And I imagined a scenario where Bran goes with him and uses his powers to dictate an accurate history of Westeros. And if Dany does end up burning down King’s Landing (or even threatening to) that would be ironic, since that’s exactly what her father was planning when Ned Stark and Robert Baratheon overthrew him. So perhaps she starts in that direction and one or more of the Starks work with Gendry to overthrow her? Sort of a repeat of history. ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2019, 10:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/game-of-thrones-8-04-the-last-of-the-starks-5-5-2019-show-discussion/833524/259 "2019-05-06T22:27:40Z")
> [@nightshadea](#): > > theres a ton of fan pushback on how and “the only black character on got” died … > > [MSN](https://www.msn.com/en-us/tv/news/game-of-thrones-why-fans-are-livid-over-the-latest-death/ar-AAAYCgs) In fact, I didn’t expect her or Grey Worm to die, precisely for this reason. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2019, 10:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/game-of-thrones-8-04-the-last-of-the-starks-5-5-2019-show-discussion/833524/260 "2019-05-06T22:30:39Z")
> [@Snarky\_Kong](#): > > Is Cersei on the throne ostensibly as a Barratheon? If so, then Gendry would be next I think. If she’s on it as a Lannister, then it would be Jaime then Tyrion. Cersei, in her own right, has no dynastic claim to the throne. She’s a usurper, who seized the throne because she could. She was never a Baratheon, merely married to one. That would make her Baratheon children heirs, if she had any, but not her. The Lannisters have no claim to the throne at all. Even if they did, both Jaime and Tyrion as males would inherit before Cersei, even though Tyrion is younger. Robert was a usurper, but if all the surviving Targaryens die, that is, Jon and Danaerys, then a legitimized Gendry is the only available heir to a recognized king. But this is all moot. Basically Westeros is such a complete shambles at this point that the throne is for the taking by anybody with sufficient military and political power. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/game-of-thrones-8-04-the-last-of-the-starks-5-5-2019-show-discussion/833524.md?page=12) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/game-of-thrones-8-04-the-last-of-the-starks-5-5-2019-show-discussion/833524.md?page=14)