There are things to like in the last few episodes, but generally speaking I believe the accelerated pacing has destroyed the storytelling.
Euron is a great character. If I recall his backstory correctly, he was kicked out of the Iron Islands long ago, and has been basically a pirate ever since, which makes his successful ambush of the Northerner’s fleet more plausible.
Britain.
Oh, wait, that’s the Euro.
I think he’s the only choice, with Sansa as his queen or co-regent. Last of the Starks and Last of the Lannisters. That’s also more or less how the Wars of the Roses ended - Henry Tudor was a cadet Lancaster through his mother and he married Elizabeth of York to unite the houses and found a new dynasty.
Dany isn’t very good at governing (hi, Meereen!) and she’s not as invincible at conquest now without her full flight of dragons. Jon is a good natural leader but a poor politician, and that doesn’t change just because now everyone knows he has a silver-plated y-chromosome courtesy of an inbred cheating father he never knew. He’s a Stark and a northerner and he’s going to retire beyond the wall if he gets the chance.
Euron isn’t a delicious villain. He’s a clown and a buffoon. His successes make no sense given his erratic decision making and lack of substantial resources of his own.
Lost? I’m sure there are others.
This drawing of a horse pretty much sums up my feelings on the writing: http://i65.tinypic.com/110f48i.jpg
Though they got the horse turned around the wrong way.
I’m glad there are only two more episodes left. I’m sure my admiration for their plot and characterization will find new limits.
His marriage to Elia Martell was annulled and he married Lyanna Stark. If that’s cheating then anyone who leaves A for B is a cheater?
I don’t think we should blame a ‘quick wrap-up’ for the flaws in the writing this season. They had what, eight and a half hours of storytelling? That’s almost as much as the Lord of the Rings trilogy, the first Star Wars trilogy, or any four or five movies. And they started with all the necessary pieces in place in Westeros and a plot nearing its conclusion.
No, the flaws in the show are entirely due to the choices made in how to wrap it up, not in the amount of time they had left.
Consider an alternative blocking of the last season:
Ep 1: Daeneris lands in Winterfell. We have some reunions and some memory-jogging of who everyone is, but we use up maybe half the screen time on that stuff. Instead, we get a scene where Jon and Daeneris almost immediately go scouting for the Army of the Dead. We can have a few battles with the Night King, but ultimately the conclusion is that they are totally boned. End the episode with maybe a wounded dragon and what looks like a hopeless situation.
Ep2: The battle for Winterfell takes place, except that before the battle Jon and Dany or Bran discover that the Night King isn’t there, and that the attack doesn’t contain all of the dead. It’s a feint. So instead of sacrificing the Dothraki, they are ordered south to try and cut off or at least harass the AoD as it heads south. With their horses it’s assumed that they can catch the army and at least slow it down. But the Night King has been busy, flying around the south resurrecting the dead. So we have intense scenes of Dothraki being ambushed by dead peasants and anyone else. Their ranks are broken and they become ineffective.
Ep 3: The problem now is that the Army of the dead is so vast and spread out that you can’t even attack them by dragon. They’re in the forests, the inns, and all over the place. And their numbers have grown exponentially. Westeros is losing big time. Bran and Tyrion have the idea of using Ravens as bombers, seeking out the white walkers and bombing them with dragonglass shards. In the meantime, Daeneris makes her trip to Dragonstone to Parlay for Cersei - not for her to surrender, but to desperately plead one more time for Cersei to join the fight. Instead, Daeneris gets ambushed, Missandei killed, etc. Things look even worse than last episode. Also, from this point Arya and the Hound split off and start heading for King’s Landing on their own, having to fight/skulk their way through the dead that now infest the land.
Episode 4: Jon’s army from Winterfell is now heading south, but can’t move fast because they have to fight through the dead Westerosi that are everywhere… Arya and the Hound arrive at King’s Landing, and sneak through the sewers to get into the Red Keep. Daeneris flies her dragons north to help the advancing northerners by burning the land in front of them, killing all the dead that are lurking everywhere. Maybe it’s here that the Night King kills another dragon - not a stupid crossbow bolt. But this time Daeneris isn’t stupid and as soon as Rhaegol hits the ground she has the body bombarded with wildfire and destroyed before the Night King can raise it.
Ep 5: The Army arrives at King’s Landing just as the Army of the Dead shows up. When Cersei actually sees the Army of the Dead, she finally opens up the gates and allows the Northerners in to protect the city and she commits her forces - but lots of her forces outside the gates are already dead. Now we get a seige at King’s Landing, where it’s now snowing, and we can have the big battle scene as we’re likely to get anyway, only it’s all of humanity against the Dead. It’s in this episode that Arya, who was there to kill Cersei, realizes she has an opportunity to kill the Night’s King, who has now entered the Red Keep after all the Queensguard are dead. Arya kills the Night’s King. The Army of the Dead fall, and humans win. But Cersei had planned for that eventuality…
Ep 6: Our heroes all meet with Cersei to get her to finally surrender, telling her that due to her finally joining the fight she’ll be allowed to go off to Casterly rock and live out her life. But Cersei double-crosses them (echoes of the Red Wedding) and suddenly hidden crossbowmen stand up and kill Daeneris and a few other main characters. Jon survives, but is thrown in a dungeon like Ned. It looks like Cersei is going to win. In the meantime, Jamie is back at her side and doing evil things because Cersei.
Then we get a scene where Cersei is in her chambers with Jamie, and the Hound breaks in and attacks the Mountain. Cersei tells Jamie to help, and Jame says, “I don’t think so” and pulls off his face to reveal Arya. She brutally murders Cersei and frees Jon, and Jon takes the throne. Arya and the hound bugger off south to explore the world. Jon frees the North, making Sansa Queen of the North. Sam Joins Jon as his head Maester, and Tyrion becomes Hand to the King. Again. Instead of Tormund just leaving beyond the wall, Sansa gifts the wildfolk autonomy in the North and land on both sides of the old wall, and Tormund becomes warden of the far north and the wildlings. He says he may need some help figuring out how to manage it all, and Sansa turns to Brienne and says, “Will you help them?” Tormund smiles.
That would be a bittersweet ending - half of Westeros dead, King’s Landing in ruins, a guy on the throne who doesn’t really want to be there, Daeneris dead, etc.
It could have been done. This is just an example, and maybe not even a good one, of how they could have changed the last season to make it less tropy and deux ex machina and to give the threat from the Night King the weight it deserved.
BTW I saw an article that said Kings Landing now looks like it’s in a desert with no sign of the ocean. I guess they are just showing the outer wall instead of the side that faces the ocean.
What? He’s got invisible, teleporting ships, heat-seeking ballistas, and the ability to bed an evil queen.
Seems pretty badass to me.
Secretly, and practically part of the same ceremony!
I can’t speak for all relationships, but I do think you are close to the right definition. If you have lined up Number Two and secured joint housing before even serving papers on Number One, I’m comfortable calling that cheating.
They’ve never explained the grounds for annulment. Seems strange when he already had two children with her.
Those two were the ones butchered by the Mountain on Robert’s orders, prompting the years-later fight between Oberyn and the Mountain?
Ha! Love it.
Yes. We don’t know what the grounds for annulment are under the Faith of the Seven, but most common grounds for annulment of marriage is non-consummation, which obviously wasn’t the case here. Other grounds for annulment include that the marriage was contracted under duress, bigamy (the spouse was already married to someone else), mental incapacity, being underage at the time of marriage, or being too closely related. None of them would appear to apply here.
It’s good to be the king, er, crown prince.
Since he obviously already had Lyanna with him, the annulment occurred after he ran off with her and while he was still legally married to Elia (whom he apparently never informed of the annulment). So yeah, that’s cheating by pretty much any definition.
Unlike Henry VIII, he didn’t have to found a new church to do it either.
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They’ve never explained the grounds for annulment
Rhaegar is a prince of the realm and heir to the throne. Like many wealthy people today, he’s going to plan for a residence when he moves out.
And I dare say a huge proportion of annulments, divorces, and breakups today happen when one of the partners knows whom ē will be partnering with next.
Why do you think there must be grounds for annulment? We don’t know much about matrimonial law under the religion of the Seven. The religion of the Seven is loosely based on Catholicism, but we have no reason to believe that it has canon law requiring cause for annulments or that a married man with two children can’t get one.
The Romans could get divorced whenever they wanted. Many of us today could get divorced without cause. Why do you assume Rhaegar needed cause or that the cause would be difficult to establish?
If the definition of cheating is so broad, then cheating is so common that it’s not much of an insult to call someone a cheater.
So, it was your first watching of GoT?