I was wondering the same thing about Euron.
In the show I don’t think we know much about Targaryen rule before Aerys. Still considering how nuts he was it would be a good idea to find out something about his heirs before scheming for a restoration.
Robert was shit, and Joffrey appeared to be an even worse option. But if they were seeking for an upgrade among known quantities then Renly would have been the best option. (Admittedly the “too gay to produce an heir” might have been a drawback.)
It’s the easiest one of all. Drogon the dragon, named for Khal Drogo.
Jon was standing there as Arya and Sansa said, “You’re our brother.” The problem is that he’s so honest, he couldn’t let them continue to believe that when he know it’s not true and that they’re actually cousins.
This will have to come into play later, giving Euron a reason to doubt/betray Cercei. It’s not a coincidence that Tyrion played that card right after Euron was told it was his child.
The whole Lord Gendry Baratheon scene would have worked perfectly if it had been Tyrion’s idea. The only change would have been Danerys telling Tyrion that she knows good advice when her Hand provides it.
My last, best hope is that they’ll stick the landing like The Shield did.
Queen Daenerys of nothing and ashes, walking up to the throne over the corpses of Jon, Varys, Jaime, Arya, Grey Worm, Ser Davos and the Hound. In the audience, Gendry does not smile. Sansa does not blink. Tyrion does not laugh.
The good:
- Pod being quietly awesome in the background. In ep. 2 he was nonchalantly kicking ass on the practice field while Brienne and Jamie did their awkward flirting. In ep. 4, during the feast he quietly pulled 2 serving girls and casually wandered off to show them why he doesn’t have to pay for it in King’s Landing.
- It was sad watching Dany celebrate alone in a hall full of people.
- The first thing Gendry does after he is made a noble and lord of Storm’s End is seek out Arya and ask her to marry him. He’s spends the entire series thinking she was too good for him and as soon as he has the bonafides he cuts right to the quick. Sadly, we know it will probably never work out because now she’s an unrepentant murder machine.
- Tormund crying over Brienne to The Hound of all people.
- Arya and The Hound ride again. Seriously, this is the buddy comedy we all need in our lives. One part moral philosophy and one part straight up murder.
- The Starks and Targaryen’s ARE NO LONGER ALLOWED TO OWN PETS! You people just don’t know how to treat your animals right. I’ve spoken withDireWolfJesus and he is not amused.
- Gray Worm, it’s not your fault Missandei got caught. Sending her to the life boat was the right thing to do, it just didn’t work out the way you expected. That being said, you have my permission to kill everyone in the Red Keep to get your revenge. Start with Greyjoy…Happy hunting!
The bad is just too much to list in detail. Dumb tactics and strategy, again. Sansa running her mouth, again. Tyrion failing to live up to past seasons, again. Jamie doing dumb shit for Cersei, again. Euron pulling a nautical miracle out of his ass, again.
The lack of intelligent, well thought out plots from the source material has really caused the last 2 seasons to depart from what has made this story so good for so long.
By Sansa running her mouth do you mean effectively undermining the person that continually threatens to subjugate her people?
That wasn’t blabbing, but a measured decision on her part.
Ok. Given the explosiveness of the information, he might not have even told Gilly. So she’s probably not “in the know.”
No, it was a total porn-setup scene. “It’s so hot in here. Are you hot? I’ll say you are, baby. Here, lemme take this off…”
For that matter, Varys knows his way around the secret passages of KL. He might even still have some of his spy network to draw upon.
This.
And this. The scene with Bronn and the two Lannister brothers was actually maybe my favorite of the entire episode.
Yes. Trying to figure out what Dany whispered to Ser Friendzone’s corpse might become as much of a parlor game as it did for the final scene of Lost in Translation.
That seems like it would be extremely out of character for the show. If Arya hadn’t shut him down, then maybe.
To the extent that Game of Thrones is about answering Varys’s riddle about who holds power, Gendry is not reasonably in the running. Gendry now has the Baratheon name, but nothing else. He has no loyal underlings, no army. The Baratheons already fought a 3-sided war against themselves before any of the other wars got going. There can’t possibly be any left. He has no guile. No ambition. No understanding of how the Game of Thrones is played. If he holds Storm’s End, it will be entirely as the dependent vassal of Dany, which is just what she wants.
That scene was just about Dany being a shrewd ruler falling into the same patterns that tyrants have always ruled with. Cement your power by handing out spoils to those loyal to you. It’s also nice that it reinforces her power to do so, and heralds a return to the pre-Robert’s Rebellion state. The place for a Baratheon is in Storm’s End. Here’s the closest thing we have to a Baratheon, so that’s where he goes.
And it also gave Gendry the chance to get shot down by Arya.
I actually really liked Bronn in this episode, after some consideration. He’s moving up the ladder in terms of the riddle. He’s realized that you don’t become a noble by being a really good sellsword. You become a noble by convincing other people to do your work for you, under threat of violence. Much better to just threaten the powerful directly than to do their bidding.
I see Jaime’s behavior as totally in character for his arc. I agree that he isn’t going back to be by Cersei’s side, and that his tearful departure was about feeling that he was a bad person unworthy of love and happiness.
We may not have seen the last of Ghost. Just because Jon told him to go north with Tormund doesn’t mean he did so.
And don’t forget that Nymeria is still alive and well. Ghost, Nymeria, and the rest of her wolfpack would make a formidable ally in the final battle. Maybe the Hound will be saved by wolves?
“I’ll never have another friend as dear as you.”
Once upon a time Sansa was told privileged information about her family and their plans and she ran off and told the first Lannister who would listen. This was a measured decision on her part and it resulted in Ned Stark getting his head chopped off.
Once again, Sansa is told privileged information about her family and once again she makes the measured decision to run off and tell the first Lannister who will listen. I don’t know what the results will be but my money says somebodies gonna die because this information wasn’t properly controlled.
God, I hope those stupid animals don’t show up anymore. They are just background characters like most of the actual humans on the show. I’m not sure why everyone is so up in arms about them all the time. Personally, I hope Potpie shows up and saves the Hound. He has done as much as any of the wolves have done.
A lot of the complaints seem to boil down to, “Why do these characters have such big flaws!” Jon is honest to a fault, like literally a fault. Dany is often good at staged, overwhelming ambushes that reverse power dynamics, but is impulsive and panicky and ragey in the heat of the moment. Jamie is brilliant but self-loathing and self-destructive. Sansa has lived in the shadow of some of the shittiest backbiters and schemers and liars in the kingdom, and falls into similar habits.
These flaws are character flaws, not show flaws. And when a character acts according to their flaws, that’s a good thing, not a bad thing.
Other flaws, like terrible battle tactics planned out by supposedly brilliant tacticians, are less forgiveable.
But I realized something and I would feel like an idiot for not thinking of it earlier, except apparently nobody else has thought of it either. The reason Dany didn’t see the ships isn’t that they motored into view so quickly and fired before she noticed: it’s because her dragon was going so fast.
If Euron had intelligence about their arrival, he could have stationed his fleet on the far side of an island anticipating that she’d scout and fly over a cliff, and that he’d be able to fire on her within seconds of her coming into view. Maybe the shot-dragon came into view before hers did, explaining the suddenness of the shot.
Yeah, and if it’s Dany, then that’s good for Sansa.
And if it’s Jon?
Winterfell may be a cold and brutal place, but at least it has a Starbucks.
You mean Starkbucks. 