Overall–meh. Hated Cersei & Jamie’s death. Cersei deserved to die in dragon fire, or by Arya ex Machina, or by getting fed to Rapesy Bolton’s hounds, or torn apart by an angry mob.
Clegane Bowl was disappointing. The Mountain looked hokey and fake, and then the unkillable zombie gimmick became a comedy spot. As he’s pulling the dagger out of his freaking skull, I’m going “It’s just a flesh wound”…
Dany completed her heel turn by making war on civilians, now she has to die. I think Arya will do her, but maybe Jon, Kinda hoping she dies before she serves up dwarf flambe…
And from our department of wild speculation, I’m calling Sansa Stark to sit on the Iron Throne…
If Danereys dies and Jon Snow rejects the seat, the person with a more solid claim to the Iron Throne should be Gendry, as the only known living relative of Robert Baratheon, I think.
They aren’t even giving proper lip service to the travel times at this point. I believe Jon’s line was something like, “The Northern army is at the Ruby Ford. They’ll be at King’s Landing in two days.”
The Ruby Ford is over 100 leagues from King’s Landing. Maybe they walk really fast.
One thing we haven’t really talked much about is the Daeneris/Jon Snow love angle - which I have found totally unbelievable from the beginning. First, there is zero chemistry between the actors. None of their romantic scenes felt really right. Second, for all the complaining about Daeneris’s ‘sudden’ turn to the dark side (which has actually been foreshadowed throughout the entire series), the ‘sudden turn’ that really was unbelievable was this sudden undying love between Jon Snow and Daeneris. She’s not even the type of person Jon Snow would like. She’s a high-born woman seeking power. The opposite of Snow. And Jon Snow isn’t the kind of man she’s been attracted to either - he’s more the Ser Jorah Type, destined to be Friendzoned. She likes the dashing, swashbuckling, aggressive men like Khal Drogo and Dario Neharis.
In terms of the show, they’ve barely been together on screen. Their whole love interest arc didn’t work for me at all. But it’s not a particular fault of writing or acting - just a good idea for the story, but that really didn’t work for me.
Her decision to rule by fear. She said so earlier, but we chose to hope she didn’t really mean it. Nope. Her actions were right in line with Saddam’s gassing of the Kurds, or the massive civilian bombing in WWII, or the destruction of the Warsaw Ghetto, or the countless times in history a city was razed to the ground to send a message. One way to hang onto or gain power is to terrorize the populace so they accept you without rebelling. If you can’t be loved, you must be feared. And Daeneris gave a speech to Jon Snow in which she admitted that the people of Westeros would never love her.
Destroying King’s landing is a really good message to the common folk and aristocracy that in the Game of Thrones, a dragon trumps all.
Daeneris has always shown herself to be willing to send such messages. Remember all the crucified people on the road to Mereen? Remember Tyrion telling the trader whose life was spared, “Go tell your people what happened here. Tell them what happens when Daeneris Stormborn and her Dragons come to town.” Or something like that. And of course, the Dothraki also ruled by fear, and she was okay with that.
Nope, I so shipped them though-- from way out in the beginning. Even hoped against the R+L=J theory just to make it so. I’m just very, very sad we didn’t get more shots of Kit Harrington’s glorious butt in the bargain.
And I have to say, everyone who says Dany’s BurnThemAll moment is out of character/too sudden remind me of people who thought Trump was a great businessman and would be a good president. Bad character judges or not paying enough attention?
She grew up listening to Viserys tell her how Westeros had betrayed their family. As she is building her power in Essos, she is greeted as a liberator by the slaves (mostly). The only interaction we see her have with the common people in Westeros is in the North. The North loves Sansa and Jon and they treat Daenerys with distrust or indifference, not the adoration she expected and felt she deserved. She tells Jon she can rule through either love or fear. When he rejects her seduction, she says fear it is. Tyrion tells her that the people of King’s Landing don’t rise up against Cersei because of fear. So, she’s sitting on the dragon, her bloodlust up, feeling the loss of her dragons and Jorah and Missandei, feeling rejected by everyone around her, thinking of how these are the people who revolted against her family and are not rallying to her now, so - fear it is.
Gendry has no army, and no real way to prove his claim. Sansa has the North, and possibly the largest relatively intact fighting force. And the Iron Throne has been claimed by force of arms since at least Robert’s Rebellion.
As Queen certainly, as far as the future goes I assume Cersei would have told him to go fuck himself but if anyone on team Stark/Dany ends up on the throne I imagine they would respect his claim.
Part of it, I think, is what a brilliant choice Emilia Clarke is for the role. She’s young and attractive, which buys her some good will, but also, from seeing her do interviews she seems bubbly and sweet. Some of that leaks through into her performance and gives Daenerys some unearned character boost.
There’s no evidence Sansa wants to be anything but Queen in the North, and she has no legitimate claim to the Iron Throne.
However, Gendry and Arya marrying would be just perfect from Sansa’s standpoint - especially with Tyrion there as hand. She trusts Tyrion and Arya, and Gendry proved himself loyal in the battle against the Army of the Dead. Gendry as a figurehead in King’s Landing with Tyrion and Sansa pulling the strings and Arya being the bridge between north and south makes a hell of a lot of sense.
So I am going to say that the most likely outcome is Jon Snow sitting on what’s left of the Iron Throne, followed by Gendry being a figurehead king with Arya at his side. I suspect that her sudden realization that vengeance is not a healthy life choice will clear the decks for her to realize that she really does love Gendry and will go along with marrying him for the good of the realm.
Before the destruction of King’s Landing, they would have. I doubt that any of the Starks will now respect any declarations made by Mad Queen Daenerys. (But if a Stark does wind up on the throne, I’d bet that they’d re-declare Gendry.)