Rushing as in they took two years to film six episodes rushing? I read somewhere HBO was willing to pony up for more episodes. Not sure why they decided to stop at eight seasons and why they decided on six (albeit longer) episodes.
This article details how rankings suffered in later seasons and are really bombing this season. The early seasons had the books to draw from. It seems the show has suffered since they lost source material to draw from and had to come up with their own.
I really do not know what happened in that writer’s room for this season…it’s like they completely lost sight of what made the show excellent and decided to fall back on easy tropes and shortcuts. Blows my mind. How do they lose sight of that? When you have a winning formula don’t mess with the formula.
They weren’t the ones who created the winning formula, they just followed it. If it was that easy to write deep compelling stories everyone would be doing it.
If Jamie isn’t the one who kills Cersei then his entire story arc is hash. He has to become the Queenslayer. It has to be him.
His entire life, he has only olives one person, his evil twin sister. He has devoted his life to protecting his family yet he has betrayed his family over and over.
He joined the Kingsguard to stop Tywin from arranging a marriage for him. He betrayed his oath to the king he swore to protect to save the people of King’s Landing.
He has been ruthless in protecting himself and Cersei, throwing Bran out a window, murdering his cousin. Yet he has failed to protect all of his children from being killed.
He went on a journey of self discovery, lost his prowess as a warrior, fell in love with another woman, left Cersei to help save Westeros from the White Walkers.
His life’s final act has to be saving Westeros from Cersei. It has to be. If not then I’m gonna just spit.
Another little annoying thing about the whole “families dying out thing”…no one seems to care that the Starks and Lannisters are almost certainly going to die out…that Arryn, Tully and Baratheon hang by a thread.
Now it’s true we don’t see all the other families but…
You’re forgetting that time works differently on the GoT planet. Sometimes it speeds up so that armies can cross continents and come back before a woman can have a baby. Sometimes it slows down so that families, culture, and technology can stagnate for 8000 years. That’s also why seasons are so screwed up. The Zombies (appropriate name!) nailed it. It’s the Time of the Season that’s important.
(Did you catch them on the Rock Hall of Fame Induction? They were great.)
Tony Stark is unmarried. Think of the possibilities of a marriage combining the two great franchises. She’d become Sansa Stark-Stark. The last of the Starks but the beginning of a new dynasty.
Okay, not that facetiously, but the ‘Great Houses’ became great houses because they had a guy who was a great fighter/strategist who backed the right ambitious dude in some conflict and was granted land and title when the ambitious dude became king. So what if the Arryn’s die out? Whoever ends up with the throne looks around. “Hmm. Sir Somebody is a hard man and likely to be loyal to me. Sir Somebody is now Lord Somebody of High Garden. And as for Casterly Rock…” Sir Somebody can change his name to Tyrell if he wants, or start the Great House of Somebody.
Actually, if they do that ‘adopt the name of the region’s previous ruler’, that would explain how the ‘families’ managed to survive for eight thousand years or whatever. It’s just like the authentic George Washington’s axe, with the head replaced five times and the handle eight times.
Jamie Lannister kills Cersei Lannister, perhaps with the assistance of Arya Stark
The Hound kills the Mountain, or perhaps Arya and the Hound do it together
The Three-Eyed Raven destroys Qyburn, or Qyburn destroys the Three-Eyed Raven, ending Magic in the world, and heralding a future of Science
What happens to the Iron Throne? Several possibilities, from least likely to most likely—
— a. Jon Snow and Daenerys Targaryen rule together
— b. Jon Snow rules as the heir of Rhaegar Targaryen
— c. Daenerys Targaryen rules as the Dragon Queen, either destroying Jon Snow or making him Jon Stark, Lord of Winterfell
— d. Sansa Stark survives the struggle between Jon and Daenerys and rules, either as Lady of Winterfell, first among equal rulers of the Seven Kingdoms, or as Queen of the Andals, the Rhoynar, and the First Men, ending the rule of House Targaryen
— e. Tyrion Lannister is revealed to be the bastard son of Aerys Targaryen and Joanna Lannister and Varys maneuvers to get him on the throne, or, rather, as the prime minister in a new republican form of government, and the Iron Throne either becomes a figurehead or is destroyed.
— f. Cersei wins the war against the good guys but her wars have left the crown penniless and without power and the Seven Kingdoms fall into chaos
As for unbroken lines of succession, I can think of couple of excuses:
There’s magic in this world. If the Lord of Light needs a Stark to be in Winterfell, then by God there will be a Stark in Winterfell.
Lying and cheating. Can’t produce a male heir? Luckily the stable girl I’ve been boinking just had a male son. So sad for her accident. And good thing my wife has been locked up for six months - that was a rough pregnancy for her. But look at her handsome baby boy!
Remember this whole thing started when Ned Stark realized Robert’s children had blond hair and not black (technically it started with Jon Arryn noticing that).
Boinking the stable girl is not a foolproof solution.
Well, Bran is of course the perfect spy/scout. He has access to all of the past, which of course starts now. I know people were upset that he wasn’t warging to scout the Night King, but:
[ol]
[li]We don’t know he wasn’t[/li][li]He doesn’t need to warg to scout[/li][/ol]
He may not care to help (he keeps saying he isn’t really human anymore), but he could accurately report on any battle planning with the only constraint being he would need to know where/when to look/listen (but he found the R+L information so that may be part of his gift).