There was a human sacrifice of a priestess in the fire when the dragon eggs hatched. And this was also Khal Drogo’s funeral pyre. Perhaps one or both of those were necessary for the eggs to hatch? How often has anyone tried to hatch dragon eggs? Did they establish the proper conditions? Who knows, as no one knows the proper conditions.
Yeah they gave her some awful dialog in this episode. I chalk it up to the writers not knowing what to do with this intense character who suddenly has every advantage and a boyfriend, but still has to be intense and anxious for the next 3 episodes.
If she accelerates from brooding bitch to full-on, rabid, gotta-put-her-down Mad Queen in the space of 1-2 episodes, I will seriously throw a shoe at the TV.
No, that was Winterfell.
Your son wins the thread. 
Right. So they were at a preteen and now… ?
BTW, I was amazed to find out that the actress who portrays her is 16. And Maisie Williams thinks she has problems looking young.
I also bet that a huge majority of the people who were appalled at Maisie Williams’ thoroughly adult character having sex were also screaming in approval when the preteen stabbed somebody in the eye. Seriously, people, get help.
I agree that’s a possibility, but with the other male Tarlys all dead, Sam may feel it’s his duty to go back to his family. But I can also see him as head Maester of the Citadel.
I could also see the last episode containing a time jump say, 10 years into the future and have the survivors of these events gather so we learn what ultimately happened to all of them. That could be the ‘bittersweet’ ending - the survivors gathering to commemorate the dead and talk about old times, while letting the audience learn what the real long-term outcome of it all turned out to be.
I think the callback to her father could very much be intentional. I’m half expecting either her or Cersei at some point saying, “Burn them all!”. It would probably be a little too on the nose to have Jamie be there when she says it and kill her just like he did the mad king, but that wildfire is still sitting there under King’s landing, and I suspect we’re going to see it used before this is all over.
Could it be because stabbing an undead giant in the eye with a knife is fake, but the nudity was all so real?
It’s about 16 minutes in, just as Tormund is saying of Jon “Most people who are murdered stay murdered.” It’s only on screen for a couple seconds.
Aptly symbolic. Even the production crew is distracted at this point (really, it should have been trivial to disguise it in post-prod).
If Tyrion winds up with Sansa at the end, I think it would more likely be as her Hand to the Queen. But yeah, I think there is room there for them to stay married and have a life together. I just don’t think it’s very likely.
Also, one way the ending could be ‘bittersweet’ is to discover that after the ‘wheel’ is broken and all the new people in place, they turn out to be just as bad as the old ones. Sansa spent her later formative years being in the company of one scheming asshole after another - don’t be surprised if she becomes a little too much like Littlefinger. Did you notice that she actually commanded young girls to seduce and have sex with some pretty unsavory characters? That’s not sweet innocent Sansa, or even good-but-world-weary Sansa. That’s a cold, calculating Sansa ordering people to do unpleasant things. Granted, she showed warmth to the Hound after that, and she looked kind at that moment. But those moments seem to be getting more rare.
Bronn at Highgarden would not be an improvement over the Tyrells. Daeneris, if she survives, could be a harsh ruler. Half the Dothraki are apparently still alive, and all they do for fun is rape and pillage. The ‘bittersweet’ ending could be that our heroes win and proceed to muck things up just as bad or worse than the last bunch.
Meet the new boss. Same as the old boss.
I’d actually really like that as an ending.
It was right around the 18:50 mark on my DVR but I don’t know if that is in any way universal. They’re still at the celebration banquet and Tormund and the boyos are bragging up Jon when he looks over at Dany still in her seat.
Even better from the viewpoint of “defying conventions”: The Faith Militant makes a reappearance after all the nobles have killed each other off and picks up the pieces. They establish an oppressive theocracy that rules for one thousand years.*
*Nothing like medieval Europe, of course.
I totally disagree with this. They have been foreshadowing Daeneris’ move to the dark side for some time.
Consider - back in Essos she had the world by the tail. She lived in fabulous places, surrounded by people who loved her. She could be absolutely brutal (putting heads on pikes, having dragons eat innocent people, etc), but we could overlook it because the people she was brutalizing were slavers, so that’s okay. During this period her dragons have just gotten bigger and stronger, as has her army.
Then she arrives in Westeros, and expects the people to hail her as a conquering hero. But Westerosi are different. There is no slavery. There are just people trying to survive. She attacks the Lannisters and wins, but a dragon gets injured. She burns two well-known, honorable captives alive. People start to fear her instead of admire her. Word spreads north about another Targaryan who likes to burn people. The people she meets do not cheer her.
Then she finds out that Westeros is fighting another kind of war - one she must help them to win, or there will be no Westeros to conquer. She loses her first dragon in that war. Remember, she’s bound to her dragons as her children. So she loses a child in that war, but she fights and saves Westeros. But then after the battle she is once again ignored and Jon is hailed as the hero. Sansa won’t give Daeneris the time of day. She feels truly isolated.
Of course, around this time she also learns that the man who came to her, got her to fall in love with him, and then dragged her into his war suddenly announces that he’s Aegon Targaryan and she has zero claim to the throne. Her world has to be spinning around her right now. Essos was nothing like this.
Even so, she holds up her end and heads back to Dragonstone to prepare for the next battle. She’s ambushed, she loses ANOTHER dragon and her beloved Missandei, killed in front of her in brutal fashion.
In the meantime, her Hand Tyrion keeps making mistake after mistake, and those mistakes seem to be benefiting the Lannisters. And Tyrion is still a Lannister. And now he’s telling her that even those she’s close to losing everything, she must not retaliate with her dragon, which is currently the only thing that gives her any real power at all.
So now Daeneris is a Queen without a kingdom, with two out of three dead ‘children’ and no support structure around her at all. She’s unmoored.
I can see how someone like that could just snap and decide that she’s surrounded by enemies and fools, and that the Westerosi are a hateful people who won’t recognize what she’s done for them. So… Burn them all, and rule by fear if you can’t win them over.
At this point, I think that’s a likely possibility. Or, if they get really TV-Tropy, she’ll run off on Drogon and everyone will think she’s about to do something horrible, but they’ll misjudge her and she will have been trying to do something smart and not evil - but die trying it.
Either way, I’m betting on a tragic end for Daeneris Stormborn.
Thank you Sam for summing that up. Its not paranoia if its true.
I’m looking at it right now on HBO GO. It’s at the 17:39 mark from the start of the show, which of course includes the previous highlights and the introductions. And, yes, it’s only for about 2 seconds. I certainly missed it last night.
Bronns a huge fucking badass and Winterfell has to be massively understaffed. IF anyone challenged him theyre probably dead or unconscious.
Could also go to 5000 feet above the Red Keep and come down straight at it. IF any of those ballistas can be turned inwards theyd have no time to do anything
They MIGHT do that. Then have Drogan actually on top of the damn thing, spewing fire everywhere…that “Danys Dragons theme song” blaring.
I thought about it some more. While ominously lining up the dragon in the cross hairs may add to the tension, it seems to me a sure-fire way to not hit anything. You kind of want to aim where the dragon is going, not where it is.
I think Gendry would just live like any other lord or bannerman. Presumably he would collect rent from his lands and some maester would handle the day to day administration of Storms End. There are a ton of lords, most of whom are not involved in the “Game of Thrones”, aside from when they are called to fight.
Although, technically, wouldn’t Gendry, now named as the last Baratheon, now have claim to the Iron Throne?
I didn’t know Dany was related to Adama. 