We don’t even have “dislikes” here so you don’t even lose internet points. And while we certainly saw a lot of Dany being ruthless to her enemies, and people she might have mistakenly thought were her enemies (the masters of mereen were not very tolerant of anyone wanting to free their slaves, we only have Hizdahrs word on his father’s liberal slave policies) we never got any hint she would ever harm random innocents. If anything we had tons of evidence to the contrary. Most of those brutal actions you quote are a DIRECT result of the culprits harming innocents.
She fed a random innocent to her dragons solely to make the point to the city leaders that the Sons of the Harpies were unacceptable.
Talking with folks this week, it surprised me how so many were upset with Jon’s ending. He shouldn’t have been punished by returning to the wall - he was the true king! And I realized that as many times as Jon said he did not want it, no one paid any attention to him (other characters and a lot of the audience). Sansa wanted him to be king. Varys wanted him to be king. Viewers wanted him to be king. He kept telling everyone that he did not want it. But what he wanted was never considered. So even it they had somehow forced him to be king, he might have been good at it but he would have been miserable. He got the best ending he could hope for - free in the north and far away from the bullshit of politics.
I watched the show Last Watch last night and it was an interesting one. It showed what what happens behind the scenes. It was two hours but I found it very interesting.
I enjoyed watching the table read, wish it was longer but it was enough to notice that some of the actors didnt like their script too much… (hello Varys).
Good stuff… so many people involved and nobody had the balls to tell D&D that the season was crap…
the next big show that ends maybe they can say before the final season : We know it’s crap and we don’t care. Maybe that will make the whiners happy.
I think it did continue the gradual decline compared to the first 4-5 seasons, but that’s hardly surprising. There are definitely things that I would have liked to have seen done differently, but I have no problem with the major points (defeat of the night king, Dany turning evil, Jon killing her, even Bran for king - with the suggestion that he played the game on purpose this way to become king). Dialogues were clearly sacrificed for action, again I might have liked it differently, but so be it. The acting was excellent, the special effects amazing. In the end: was I entertained? Yes, definitely.
Interesting exchange between Barristan Selmy and Daenerys in season 5:
Daenerys Targaryan also gave her enemies the justice she thought they deserved, and each time it made her feel more powerful and right, until the very end.
Like father, like daughter. Selmy basically described the rise and fall of Daenerys Targaryan three seasons ago.
Barristan Selmy was a great character who shouldn’t have been killed off so early. He’s still alive in the books. I liked his contradictions. He was a kingsguard who let his king die, joined the usurper’s kingsguard, and then let him die too. Yet he only talks about honor and duty. Then he wanders off to find some other monarch to serve. He’s one of the few knights whose skills Jamie respects. But he admits that his best fighting days are behind him. Yet he refused an honorable retirement. I’m sure he’ll go out fighting in the books, but his death in the show was lame and anticlimatic. It would have been fitting for him to live long enough to see Daenerys die too, and realize he failed yet another ruler he was sworn to protect with his life.
I definitely come down on the side of “like it”, but I believe they could have done better. It was a lot of pressure.
They do NOT deserve to be put up there in the upper level of “crappy endings to good shows”. I leave that to Dexter and X-files, personally. No way is this anywhere near as bad as those.
It was a good end for Barristan Selmy - he got to die fighting for his queen, and he died before he discovered once again that the person he was sworn to was going to end badly.
Rewatching, there are a number of scenes where Ser Barristan doesn’t say anything, but you can tell he’s having second thoughts about his Queen. He gives her a lot of side-eye when she’s making rash decisions.
many people thought the books went downhill too after the first 3 so the show is just continuing that tradition. 
I love behind the scenes stuff so I really enjoyed it. It was obviously exhausting for all the crew. Someone said that it was good the show was ending because there was no way they would be able to do it if it had gotten any bigger. If was fun to follow the extra through the whole thing. He really loved what he was doing.
It was interesting that Kit Harrington hadn’t read the script before the table read and was so surprised that Jon was going to kill Daenerys. And Emilia Clark’s look to him like “yep, that’s what they’re doing”.
My favorite line was when the director was driving to the set past a pasture and said “those sheep have seen things.” 
I highly recommend The Last Watch, even if you were disappointed in the last season, I liked that they followed the behind the scenes workers for the most part and the extras and lesser known actors. The sheer joy of Vladimir Furdik (the Night King) with the fans was something to behold.
And now I want one of the spin-offs to be called “Bannerman”, starring Andrew McClay.
THR did a scientific poll to find out what regular GoT viewers think, something I have been dying to know. Turns out they are a little more positive than the social media/Reddit consensus, but only a little:
To me, the last season felt rushed. It reminded me of the last episode of a cancelled TV-show where they try to tie up as many loose ends as they can.
-The entire Night King/Azor Ahai issue ended with a knife thrust. Who was the Night King? Just a grumpkin? What was his deal? What about Azor Ahai, R’hllor etc ?
-Winter is coming. No, it isn’t. After almost a decade of saying that winter is coming, we’ve had so many years of summer, it’ll be the worst in thousands of years, they’ve used their resources on wars instead of the normal stockpiling and prepping. The winter turned out to be a complete nothing. The characters just spent eight years in some kind of autumn limbo.
-The character arcs seemed far too rushed. There had been some work done on foreshadowing Danys fall, and some character work but the final turn was still way to sudden to seem right to most people.
And Jon… they seemed to think they were writing book Jon, rather than the character he has developed into in the show. Show Jon is probably around Joffery as a potential King. Varys, who saw Rhaegar screw up the end of Aerys reign, and served on the council of Robert Baratheon, watching him run the kingdom down for 20 years through his dislike of being King, should be particularly opposed to Jon as king. To Varys, Jon must seem like some king of unholy union of everything unsuitable in Robert and Rhaegar with a parodic ineptitude as a military commander, thrown in.
Instead of showing more organic growth towards the endpoints of their arcs, the season relied on exposition instead. They said it, they didn’t show it. Tyrion and Varys going on about how they are worried about the queens mental state, and in defiance of all common sense, how good Jon would be as a King.
Also, Tyrion didn say much clever and funny in the season.
Arya -what was the payoff of the whole learning to take on other peoples faces? And a few cliches from the hound and she changes her whole outlook?
And the whole turning Brienne into a crying girlfriend at the end, ick. The whole sudden Jamie/Brienne issue, and Jamie suddenly reverting and ending up right back where he started the show. Too sudden.
And the magic +5 repeating invisible scorpions in the invisible fleet, that suddenly turned out to be not very effective after all, when not fired from the moving deck of a ship.
But mainly, the character arcs and story seemed to be rushed to a finish. Bran as the mastermind, ok. Might have seen some hints of that sooner? For a show that is so renowned for its characters, it just came across as incredibly arbitrary.
I felt like there was supposed to be nine or ten seasons in total, and they suddenly decided to cut it short, abruptly forcing everything to its planned endpoint.
He didn’t let Aerys die, he was wounded at the Battle of Ruby Ford, and was recovering when Kings Landing was sacked.
I’m not sure how a Kingsguard could have prevented a drunk king hunting a boar, but he was there, so I suppose he did let Robert die.
That’s part of his tragedy. He really couldn’t have stopped it, but you can be sure others think less of him for it. With King Robert, he could have taken a more active role in politics and realized Cersei had it in for him. Might have went along on the hunt with him. Most people underestimated Cersei though, so it’s understandable.
Technically hasn’t Aegon Targaryan (Jon Snow) been head of his house longer?
What a helpful comment and a GREAT contribution to the thread. :dubious:
The idea that it takes an impressive level of boldness to express an opinion about a television show on the internet deserves mockery.