"The Iron Throne"

Hello my chickadees.

Season 8 is over, and its time to examine where nearly a decade of this show has left us. There is much more to say than I can do justice to in one post, so I'm going to focus on just the things I want to talk about. In the following weeks there internet will be awash in think pieces about Game of Thrones that cover the things I don't address. So, without any further ado, let's dive in:

The Mad Queen...

Welp, time to riot. I'm sure much smarter people than me are going to break down every single Dany scene in the lead up to season 8 to show how this turn to evil was not at all foreshadowed. For my part, I'm just going to talk about it briefly, because the majority of you don't need me to explain why this was stupid.

Instead, I'm going to talk about the elephant in the room: that this turn is likely planned by GRRM for ASOIAF.

As I said above, I'm pretty okay with that. This would be a compelling intrapersonal struggle to center a season of this show around. The problem is that book Dany is unmoored from show Dany. Dany in the show is portrayed as a heroic liberator. Occasionally petulant and unyielding, but someone who on the whole is genuinely concerned with the plight of common people. Remember a couple seasons ago when she locked up her dragons after they killed one child? People who claim this was all set up by Dany executing people are literally incapable of noticing the framing of a scene and just take the text at face value. Good characters routinely execute people in Game of Thrones, and its not portrayed as inherently evil. Additionally, if I had a nickle for every time an episode ended with a triumphant shot of a dragon roaring...

Book Dany is much more morally gray. She shows signs of being unhinged: hearing voices, literally thinking of her dragons as her children, etc. The Dany of the book is much easier to see slipping into "madness" than the Dany of the show. But the show instead takes the whitewashed heroic Dany, then gives her the book plot twist in literally two episodes - undermining 7 1/2 seasons of character development. What's worse is that Dany dies and we abruptly shift to tying up loose ends. Dany is arguably the main character of GOT and her death is treated as if it doesn't even matter.

If you wanted to go this route with the character, you needed to decide on that a long time ago. One of the reasons Alan Rickman's performance as Snape in the otherwise lackluster HP moves is so good is that JK Rowling told him the twist years in advance. It allowed him to give layers to his performance of Snape, and make him a nuanced character rather than the one-dimensional villains the directors wanted him to be. Emilia Clarke had a mere 4 1/2 episodes to foreshadow this, and it simply was not enough time or such a radical departure in how Daenerys has been characterized up to now.

This is another moment where you really feel the effects of a plot change from the books: the exclusion of Young Griff/"Aegon." In the books, Dany will likely arrive to a Westeros where Cersei has been deposed and KL, Highgarden, and Dorne are united under Aegon. The people will love him for having deposed Cersei, and see Daenerys as a foreign invader. Moreover, Dany will likely know Jon is the real Aegon. Seeing her throne on the brink of slipping away, she will have strong motivation to do something drastic and go too far in her quest for power. Instead, the show excludes Aegon and contorts itself to keep Cersei relevant and make her the final villain.

This is where I admit I have never really liked Dany, although that might largely be a factor of her lacking interesting characters surrounding her to interact with for much of the early seasons. That being said, what I do love about her is that she has had one of the more consistent characterizations throughout. While the overall quality of the show took a dip in season 5, she had some of her strongest scenes. One of the more interesting Daenery's plotlines was her figuring out how to govern Mereen. Watching her navigate dealing with the Sons of the Harpy and learning how to govern was compelling and forced her character to grow and compromise. Emilia Clarke was singled out for being one of the weaker actresses in the first couple seasons of the show. However, to her credit, in the years since she has grown into the role and even amidst of this garbage fire of a season brings her A game.

This is all to say, I think its really shitty how they yanked Emilia's career-defining character out from under her in the final season, and I feel really bad for her. Daenerys is a character who is important beyond just the show. She is a strong and well-written female character in a media landscape with precious few. People feel empowered by her story and see her as representing the best of us. I don't normally advocate for the "real world" influencing the writing of a character, but given the importance of this character, I find her ham-fisted turn to evil even more appalling. D&D just straight up take the female heroic icon of a generation and turn her "crazy" over the course of two episodes for no other reason than to have a dramatic finish. Appalling.

Press F for everyone who named their daughter Daenerys or Khaleesi over the last decade.

The Problem of Arya

God, I know I sound like a neckbeard when I say that I really hate Arya post season 4. I also am aware that this is the third female character I have complained about in a row. In my defense, were I to keep going, I would write similar sections about Jon and Bran, but I intend to be basically done with GOT after this. Suffice it to say that examining Sansa and Cersei in such fashion was because the missteps they have taken with both characters have been on full display this season and they were relevant to the episodes I wanted to examine. Additionally, Sansa and Cersei were both two of my characters in the early seasons, and seeing the shell of a character Cersei in particular has become hurts me. I'm going to address Arya here today for my last post because I think she embodies everything that is wrong with the show as it comes to a close.

My pet theory is that people only love Arya because Maisie Williams is awesome IRL. But as for her character after season 4... Well, let's go ahead and get into it. Arya has some of my all-time favorite scenes in Game of Thrones. Her scenes with Tywin are some of the best in the entire show, and watching her and the Hound in Season 4 never fails to bring joy to my heart. The dialogue really crackles, the characters are really strong, and through her we get to explore a lot of Westeros.

Then we go to Bravos....

So, Arya goes to Bravos and tries to become a faceless man. The waif hates her for some reason. Her conflict here seems to be whether she will shed her Stark identity and truly become a faceless man or not. Anyway, she eventually decides to leave the faceless men, and then we get the infamous sequence where she is just walking around Bravos like an oblivious idiot who doesn't have a cult of assassins trying to kill her. She gets stabbed multiple times in the stomach, jumps into a dirty ditch, and yet somehow survives. Anyway, she then kills the waif, and declares she is Arya Stark of Winterfell. Congratulations, we just spent two seasons only for this character to end right back where she started. She also somehow keeps the faceless man powers despite not being "no one."

Fast forward to season 7 ending with the refrain that "The lone wolf dies but the pack survives." Then at the end of Season 8, she leaves the explore the Western Sea.

What.

What was the whole point of her re-asserting her identity as a Stark and that stupid bit about staying in the pack if she was just going to reject it in the end and go off on her own at the end of the show?

Arya is also patient zero for the shows increasing glorification of violence and being a badass. Arya just fucking slaughters people in these later seasons. Early on in the show, every time she killed it was treated as a dehumanizing moment. The viewer was left to ponder the woman she's become, to mourn the loss of humanity she has suffered in her quest for safety. Then the showwriters decided violence and revenge were cool and empowering, and Arya becomes a video game character in terms of her kill count and imperviousness. They also clearly didn't know how to handle a character as strong as Arya. Arya could have ended this whole war just by going down to KL and killing Cersei before Dany burned it down, but D&D decide that would apparently have been too simple.

The worst part is that Arya ends Season 8 having never used her faceless man powers except to kill a bunch of Freys. Whoop-de-doo. What was the point of her being a faceless man again?

If you take out Arya killing the Night King, her character has literally no impact on the overarching story, and that felt unearned and arbitrary. But its not the only arbitrary thing that happened this season...

Bran and the Worst Scene in Game of Thrones History

I could not have made this scene any stupider if I tried. And I'm going to break it down in painstaking detail.

First off, Bran. God what a disappointment. What a waste of a bunch of cool ideas. Neither Bran's ability to warg into animals or change the past had any impact on the final story. His only plot relevance, his payoff for seasons and seasons of traipsing around north of the wall with poor Meera dragging him around, was to be arbitrary bait for the NK and then be appointed King through no agency of his own. D&D could just never decide what the Three-Eyed Raven actually is and what his powers are besides being the "memory of the world" that the NK wanted to destroy. When I read the leaks about this episode, that Bran was voted king by the council, I assumed it would come on the heels of him wowing them with his seer powers, maybe even blackmailing them. But no....his powers are officially worthless.

So, after the most important character in the show dies we fade cut to Tyrion being taken to a council meeting (Shout out to Robin for the unexpected glow up). Grey Worm was supposed to bring Jon, but didn't. This tells us two things. First, instead of lying and saying the dragon killed Daenerys or carried her off after wounding her, Jon admitted to killing her. Second, the Unsullied decided not to kill Jon on the spot and keep him prisoner for some reason. Yara thinks he should be punished too, I guess because she and Dany flirted once.

Anyway, we decide we need a new king. Edmure puts himself forward and Sansa shuts him down. This is one of the few moments I enjoyed this episode, purely because I always wanted Sansa to become a powerful and confident player of the game of thrones. And while I don't like how we got here, I like where her character ends this episode.

And then the scene comes.

The type of scene that writers love and I hate.

Sam suggests that Westeros switch to a Democratic form of government.

GET IT, BECAUSE WE LIVE IN A DEMOCRACY AND WE KNOW ITS OBVIOUSLY THE BEST FORM OF GOVERNMENT! LOOK AT THESE FOOLS LAUGHING AT HIM.

I hate scenes like this for two reasons. First off, they exist purely to make the audience feel smart. There is a similar scene in Titanic, where Rose McGowan is collecting paintings by Picasso only for her asshole fiance to loudly proclaim that he will never amount to a thing.

GET IT AUDIENCE?!?! HOW STUPID IS HE FOR NOT KNOWING HOW IMPORTANT PICASSO WOULD BECOME XD XD XD YOU KNOW BETTER THOUGH.

These scenes are stupid and pandering.

Second - this is a critique from my academic training -scenes like this rely on the implicit Fukuyama-esque notion that democratic governments are the end of history and are the most natural form of government. Without getting too deep into this strain of thought, I think this reasoning is presumptuous and complacent.

Anyway, back to the scene. Tyrion asks "What is more powerful than a good story?" and I nearly puke. This is such a saccharine notion from a show grounded in realpolitik. Remember the scene in Season 1 where Littlefinger coyly teases Cersei with the notion that knowledge is power, then she orders her guards to kill him, stops them, and retorts "power is power?" Yeah, apparently D&D don't.

Anyway Tyrion says that Bran is the best candidate because.....I don't know. IT SUBVERTS OUR EXPECTATIONS. He apparently also gets a vote and says aye. Everyone follows suit, and then Sansa is like: "JK, the North is going to be independent."

I hate this for a multitude of reasons. Let's list them:

1. This plot development is pandering to an audience of Americans who have positive associations with the word "independence." In the world of the show, the North has little going for it but its size and is often dependent on the South for imports of food. This is roughly the equivalent of Montana deciding to go its own way.
2. I love Yara's facial expression at this proclamation by Sansa. "Wait, this was an option?" The showrunners also forgot that Dany promised independence to the Iron Islands.
3. Man, it sure is easy to declare independence after you put someone from your family on the Throne of the Six Kingdoms. The Baratheons really missed the boat on that one.
4. Why would you declare independence when you have a Stark on the Iron Throne? You have more to gain by staying in the compact.
5. What's to stop other Kingdoms from now declaring independence? What makes the North special? You're just weakening Bran's position if you establish precedent that the Seven Kingdoms will no longer remain united.

Anyway, the North is independent in a massive plot development that literally has no reason to happen outside fan service. Instead of raping and pillaging the Six Kingdoms, the Dothraki politely leave along with the Unsullied to go liberate Naath. I guess they forgot about the butterflies. The Night Watch still exists for some reason as a place for "bastards and broken things." Instead of just waiting for Grey Worm and his indeterminate number of Unsullied to leave, Jon goes back to the Wall. What's preventing him from coming back from exile? What about all the people Varys told he was the rightful heir?

The show was weirdly focused on the Starks at the end of the day, making a big production of showing what happens to the three besides Bran. I realize that people like the Starks, because they are the main point of view family for book one. However, the books and show quickly move beyond that to focus on lots of other interesting characters. But at the end of the show, we're apparently focused on the Starks again? I guess they won the Game of Thrones. Bran rules the Six Kingdoms. Sansa is Queen of da Norf, Jon is King Beyond the Wall (I guess?), and Arya is off to find some Native Americans to genocide. Wooo....?


Well, Here We Are

I haven't even talked about the waste that was the Golden Company, the underwhelming Clegane Bowl, completely assassinating Jaime's character, dragons being invincible again... The list goes on, but I'm going to end here. I'm done at this point.

This season was awful and ruined Game of Thrones. I can't even go back and watch the early seasons and fully enjoy them. All that foreshadowing with Jon led nowhere. Bran's plot led nowhere. Jaime's seven seasons of character growth was thrown out at last minute. You can't watch it now without all that knowledge in the back of your head.

People will pile on this season as being where Game of Thrones went wrong, but the problems began years ago. In a sentence, the core problem is that events in the show ceased deriving from the actions and motivations of characters. It took this long for criticism to catch up with the show for two reasons:

1. By season 5 GOT had become a cultural force to be reckoned with and few were willing to critique it.
2. While there was still show left, the pile up of problems was camouflaged. There was still time left to fix the remaining issues, and people gave D&D the benefit of the doubt with the hope that they would find a way to satisfyingly tie it all up.

This season feels rushed and half-baked, and many will be tempted to say that if D&D had written the ten episode season HBO had offered them it would have been good. While I do think it would have fixed some of the problems, the core issues would remain. Its a cliche at this point to single out the writing in Game of Thrones as being poor. But truly, in a show where the acting, scoring, cinematography, effects, and editing have consistently been good, the writing has been the one thing dragging it down. D&D never understood the themes of their own show, and grew increasingly willing to alter or ignore previous characterization if they could get an epic fight or pointless surprise death out of it.

I'll close in saying I hate the fanbases on r/gameofthrones. I have read so many posts to the effect of "I LOVED THIS EPISODE AND IF YOU DIDN'T SEE THE FORESHADOWING FOR THIS YOU'RE DUMB." If you have to argue that the writing is good, it probably isn't very good. And if you feel the need to go online after watching a piece of media, and your identity is so tied up in liking it that you need to bludgeon others into liking it, then you have a juvenile sense of identity that ties your sense of self to the media you consume. I loved Shazam, I'm sure there were plenty of people who didn't. You know what I didn't do after watching it? Go to r/dc and make posts to the effect of: "UNPOPULAR OPINION, I LIKED SHAZAM." I enjoyed it and moved on with my life, and that's what I'm doing now.

Game of Thrones started off as an amazing show, full of complex and nuanced characters who blurred the line between "good" and "bad." It raised the bar for a fantasy series, with excellent dialogue  and an expansive and fleshed out world that we're unlikely to see equaled anytime soon. It's a show that I've been a fan of for nearly a decade, and I wish I could end this without a bitter taste in my mouth. Alas, in the words of countless internet edgelords:

"If you think this has a happy ending, you haven't been paying attention"

Peace.

Charterstone Chronicle, Game 11

On a non-Game of Thrones note, we played the 11th game of our Charterstone campaign!

I have simultaneously much and little to say about this game. At this point, I basically know where I stand on Charterstone and this game did little to change my opinion. I'm saving a lot of my thoughts for the post-campaign write up. In sum, I loved the first 1-6 games of this campaign, but since then it has gotten significantly worse. As the campaign has worn on, it becomes increasingly clear some elements of the game are unbalanced or were simply not play-tested enough.

To illustrate, I give you exhibit A:

This, my friends, is an infinite loop. We got to the late game with fewer than five cards in the advancement deck. Of the five, three were amulets, which were being constantly used by this point in the game. Daniel and I speculated that it might be possible to create an infinite loop of points out of chaining these with your minions, and lo, Daniel realized he had the right combination of gold, point, and resource production buildings in his charter plus the two robots needed to pull it off. What you see above is game over. Daniel could have churned infinite points using this combo.

So on the one hand we broke the game and that's a little hilarious. On the other, this feels like something that should have been noticed by someone in play-testing. Advancement cards, and especially treasures, are simply too strong compared to other game elements.

Also, this game dragged on for three and a half hours.

We aren't even a particularly slow playing group, but with all the charterstone boxes opened and buildings built, there are just not many ways to move up the counter. And so this game lingered on and on and on. I think it's safe to say that most play groups won't encounter this. They will build their buildings slower and not reach interminable final games of the campaign as we have. But Jesus Christ, it feels like this possibility is something that should have been caught in play-testing.

The goal of this game was to have the most advancement cards, which Dani won. This game was notable with the temporary rule that you couldn't put your meeples in your own charter. Some people, like Amanda, realized the implications of this and held on to their high-powered buildings. Megan did not, and without the Resort on the board, her Perfumery was by far the best building in a gold glutted game. I don't think she ever got to put a minion down on it, maybe once or twice. This wasn't accidental - I was taking this as an opportunity to close the gap between us and prevent her from using it. Despite suffering much in the early game, Megan managed to finish out strong. However, Daniel did not get reined in as early or consistently by other players blocking him from using his Arena. Combined with his ridiculous combination of assistants and friends, he finished with what I think was the highest score to date. In fairness though, with the infinite loop cracked, I don't think there is any doubt anymore who is winning this campaign.

Anyway, we had all but agreed to call this the last game. But then, we had our twist. The Forever King is.....EVIL.

Yeah, whatever. Our score was high enough or something so we defeated him through the power of friendship. Four of us rebelled, two stayed loyal. All of the new personas just seem alternately trolly or weak. Now we get to elect a new mayor of our village. Wooo.

Can you tell I'm not super excited for another 3 1/2 hour game of this? I could play a round of the Game of Thrones board game in that time! (which I finally got to play again this last weekend at my Bachelor Party)

Anyway, we're going to play one more, mostly just to use the new personas and put our campaign to rest. We may abbreviate it and have the turn tracker start closer to the finish. At that point, I'll talk about Charterstone as a whole. Preview TL;DR: great concept for a game, and I salute it for the quality of its components and fantastic art style. However, the game suffers from a lot of classic Legacy game issues of poorly implemented rubber-banding and feature creep, combined with a lack of play-testing the late game that heavily weighs down its overall quality for me. It's not a terrible game, it just pales in comparison to some of the other Legacy games I've played in terms of overall experience.

That being said, I have loved our play group. And the six of us getting together to enjoy/suffer through Charterstone has been one of the more enjoyable aspects of the last year. So, before I go into the last game, I want to give a shout out to Danielle, Megan, Daniel, Caralee and Amanda for all making this the memorable experience it has been :)

Oh, and all hail our new overlord Daniel! The Infinity King!

Edit: Oh, one last thing. I had bubbled in the 'extra' track before this game under the mistaken belief it gave me an additional of one of the bonus categories above this. Daniel postulated it was just for extra glory after filling out everything. I cannot find anything online that states otherwise, so I'm pretty sure I am mistaken and he is right. C'est la vie.

Anyway, it's going to be hilarious next game when Daniel has more glory than empty stars on his box XD

"The Last of the Starks"

Ohhh boy, I did not think I would be doing another one of these.

I made this post back in April of 2017 and I feel like a lot of the general ideas I articulated in it were paid off tonight in another head-scratcher of an episode. And what is the internet for if not loudly airing uninformed criticism.

So without further ado, I'm going to once again spend awhile talking about characters and themes before actually getting to the episode itself.

Violence in Game of Thrones

The show has a wildly different take on violence than the books and the early show.

Violence is actually surprisingly rare in the early seasons of Game of Thrones. The first season passes without a big battle episode, and we don't get real wholesale violence until The Battle of Blackwater at the conclusion of Season 2. True to the books, the battle of the Whispering Wood takes place off screen. The most notable incidents are Jaime vs. Ned, the betrayal of Ned by the Gold Cloaks, and the beheading of Ned. None of these are actions portrayed as badass or cool. In fact, main characters showing their combat prowess is unusual (If you sense that I think this show is at its best when people are sitting down and talking, you're right).

Anyway, this progressively changes as the show goes on. Violence and being a badass is increasingly shown as heroic and honorable. The most notable example here is Arya. The conclusion of Season 6 shows her slaughtering the Freys wholesale, and we're supposed to think it's laudatory? Earlier Thrones would have portrayed this as a somber scene, a moment to reflect on the detached killer Arya has become. In another similar moment, Sansa kills Ramsey Bolton by turning his dogs loose on him. A fitting end for Ramsey, yes. Something a "good" character does....I'm not sure.

Human on human violence is inherently a waste and tragic, because the game of thrones is irrelevant and you're going to need every person you can get in upcoming war versus the dead (remember when the Others were the main villains of the show?). To this end, the battles and intrigue are all pointless distractions and inherently sad because of it.

There is a notable early exception to this, and where the show starts changing how it portrays violence.

Yeah, I'm not going to lie, I love this whole scene.

But its a relevant plot moment when we get to season 7 and season 8. The show can't decide if using the dragons to burn up people is fine and badass or a war crime. The answer honestly seems to change based on the needs of the plot at the moment, and it's really frustrating to watch. In Season 7 Dany is urged to not just win the war and use her dragons by her advisors. Olenna says they're wrong and she should "be a dragon." Sure enough, Tyrion's "overly timid" approach gets them defeated at multiple turns by the teleporting Euron, putting Dany on the backfoot. She then follows her instincts and burns up a Lannister army. Cool, so using dragons is good, right? Well sorta, she goes a little far and burns up the Tarlys, which the show has confirmed to us was bad with Sam's reaction this season to it.

Last season I thought they were contriving her keeping her dragons in reserve so we could have a season and she wouldn't just win outright. And we're now back to the same plot tension, should she burn up King's Landing or not? Seems like a bad inhumane idea, but the show did want her to "be a dragon" last season so I don't know. We'll come back to this in a moment.

The Problem of Sansa

Sansa has been the single most frustrating character for me these last few seasons. Its especially galling because she was one of my three favorite characters in the first four seasons. I believe the moment they kicked off her season 5 plot (combined with the Dorne sidequest) was the moment the show started getting bad.

Sansa's plot in the first few seasons was essentially the death of innocence and her becoming a player in the game of thrones. It's a classic case of be careful what you wish for: wanting nothing more than to marry a prince and leave Winterfell, and suffering throughout the first few seasons for it. But she not only survives but thrives, learning from some of the best manipulators and politicians in the show and going from a sweet and naive girl to a smooth and calculating player in the game of thrones. The scene the screenshot above is from is one of my favorite moments of the entire show. After Baelish's murder of her aunt, Sophie Turner has a wonderfully acted out scene where she is playing Sansa acting like her younger self and convincing all the Vale lords her aunt committed suicide This is her official entrance into the game, symbolized by the framing of this shot and her costume change. She struts with newfound confidence, having thrived in KL and the Eeyrie, and ready to fuck shit up with Baelish. 

I thought, naturally, that Season 5 would showcase her using her intelligence and wit, combined with the skills she learned from Cersei, Olenna, and Petyr to begin accumulating power. Instead it goes in a completely different direction. 

It's hard to articulate just how much I hated this character. And no, not because the show writers wanted us to and were desperately trying to rekindle that Joffrey magic. This character was gratuitously cruel, immune to his own bad decision making, and got way too much screen time for his impact on the story. So, Season 5 starts with Petyr essentially selling Sansa off to him to be wed. Why Petyr would do this with the woman he loves is beyond me. While Sansa and Petyr do later have a scene about this in season 6, it's pretty unsatisfying and I don't buy his explanation or her forgiving him. But because we didn't write Jeyne Poole into the TV show and torturing Theon was getting old, we apparently needed someone else for Ramsey to abuse.

HE'S EVIL, DO YOU GET IT AUDIENCE? HERE'S SOME GRATUITOUS RAPE JUST IN CASE YOU DIDN'T.

Anyway, so after becoming a player in the game of thrones, Sansa is thrown into a situation where all her skills are worthless, and she just gets brutalized by Ramsey until her and Theon run away in the finale of the season. Four seasons of character growth are wasted as Sansa is once again a helpless bystander being acted upon like she was in season 1.

Let's rewrite this to preserve her character growth, shall we?

Maybe instead of a chaotic evil bad egg who is clearly supposed to be on the spectrum, Ramsey is just a bad dude. He wants power, is not particularly bothered by what methods he uses to get it, and likes torturing his enemies. Cool. He's also the bastard son of a relatively minor northern house and is probably something of an uncultured country bumpkin. Let's play with that. Sansa is a very beautiful and sophisticated daughter of privilege. Maybe Ramsey is smitten with her. Maybe she draws from Cersei's playbook and uses her femininity and sex to influence and control Ramsay. She becomes the true power in Winterfell through cunning and manipulation. This also sets up a fun conflict after Ramsey defeats Stannis and wants to kill Jon to remove any remaining rival claimants to Winterfell. Does she work against him and help install a brother she never liked? Or does she turn a blind eye to his cruelty but continue to hold sway? 

But no, Sansa gets emotionally, physically, and sexually abused and ceases being an actor in her own story. This is where the problems begin, but it goes downhill from there.

In Season 6, she complains that people aren't asking her about what Ramsey is capable of in the lead up to the Battle of the Bastards and then when asked has nothing useful to say other than: "expect the unexpected." She sits on her Vale trump card and uses it at last minute after most of the Northmen and Wildlings have died because our show writers apparently watched the Battle of Helm's Deep once. She essentially doesn't do anything this season.

In Season 7, we have a contrived conflict between her and Arya that is purely for the benefit of the audience. The reveal in the final episode is that they never were at odds, and Petyr has been outflanked by their sisterhood. Cool. Almost fitting, at least Sansa got to finally use her political acumen to defeat an opponent. The shame is that the audience doesn't get to see it in action for the purpose of raising the tension.

In season 8 things haven't improved. Sansa has no grand character arc at this point. She is spiteful and petty and essentially here just to sow tension in the allied camp. I thought after seeing literally thousands of people (including most of Dany's army) die to protect Winterfell, she would have a little perspective and feel a little bit grateful to Dany for showing up to save their asses. But no, her last scene in this episode is her smirking about the possibility of Cersei winning. This is shortsightedness on par with Cersei's. What does she think will happen if Dany loses?

Aftermath

I unabashedly love the first third or so of this episode.

The funeral scene is actually pretty touching, especially Dany's Lost in Translation moment with Jorah. There's a weight in the air. Opening the feast without music was a good move from this episode's director, and it allows for a natural transition from the quiet and awkward beginning to the celebration of life that caps it off. This scene has lots of great character interactions and I love it.

Dany asks the question I've been wondering since Season 3: "Who is Lord in Storm's End?" and appoints Gendry as the new storm lord. The Hound is gruff and sets up Pod to score a threesome. Tormund finally has his heard broken by Brienne. Sansa and the Hound reunite. Gendry proposes to Arya, she refuses - sad but appropriate for her character. Brienne and Jamie pay off all their tension and fuck. I would have been fine with a romantic or platonic direction for their relationship, but honestly really liked it.

My only critique would be that this is probably the last time we're going to get sex on screen in Game of Thrones, and it was all really restrained. This would have been a good moment for the show to make up for its earlier constant objectification of women and show us an erect dick on screen. But whatever.

The trouble begins when Dany and Jon meet up

Dany wants Jon to not tell anybody the secret of his parentage, correctly assuming that people will pressure him to be king. Jon, either willfully naive or lawful stupid insists he needs to tell his sisters. Dany has a "mad queen" moment and orders him not to share it.

I don't get the pressure to tell his sisters. Jon claims it's because they're his family, but he has never showed inclination to share really crucial information with them to date. Notably, Jon still hasn't spelled out to his sisters: "Oh yeah, I died, then I came back - btw there is no afterlife." Jon's death continues to be a really unsatisfying plot point because of the lack of impact it has had on the character. But yeah, he's insisting on telling his sisters because we need tension and something for Dany to be mad at him about in an episode or two.

Anyway, we then get to the war planning scene, one of my least favorite scenes in GOT to date. Sansa says the men need to rest before marching south. Dany, after hearing Varys say the Cersei loses allies by the day, contradicts him and says "my enemies grow stronger by the day," and Jon tries to get in good with his aunt by insisting they will march immediately. This scene also suffers from the "Sansa is upset but doesn't have an alternative suggestion" problem. How long do the men need to recover? Fucked if she knows.

Also, shout out to the writers for remembering that Dorne exists.

Anyway, here is how real characters would have behaved in this scene:

Dany: We need to march immediately

Sansa: We just barely fought off the dead and many of the men are wounded. If you march right now, only half of the Northmen will be able to make the long journey south. 

Dany: How long do your forces need to recover?

Sansa: Hard to say, two weeks? 

Dany: You get a week. 

Boom, instead of an uncomfortable scene where the audience doesn't know who has the better point (having not seen the state of the Northern armies or been appraised of Cersei's support), we have a simple normal human moment between these characters that allows them to compromise.

But no, we needed a reason for Arya to take Jon out to the Godswood for a Stark Council. A leading comment is made and Jon takes the moment to spill the beans about his parentage. We don't even get to see their reaction shot. Upon swearing she won't share the information, Sansa immediately decides to stir the pot and tell Tyrion, who tells Varys. I swear its like a middle school cafeteria.

More Stuff I Liked

I want to call out a few more good things I liked before I bring this home. 

I loved Jon's scenes with Tormund and Sam, especially his scene with Sam. I was surprised by how emotional it made me. For all intents and purposes, this was the goodbye for both of these characters and the scene with Sam was very touching.

I also loved all the Varys and Tyrion scenes this episode. It was a callback to early Game of Thrones. I wondered why Varys lived through last episode, and now I see why. I do find his sudden lack of confidence in Dany a little contrived, but its more or less in line with his character, and it gave us some good scenes if nothing else. I expect Dany will cap his ass next episode.

Bronn's scene was mostly pointless, but I liked seeing him interact with Tyrion and Jaime again.

Jaime's arc with Brienne ended more quickly than I would have liked, but their final scene together was heart-wrenching and it showcased just how broken of a man Jaime is. I expect he's off to KL to kill his sister now and will fast travel down there in time for next episode.

I love that Arya is leaving on a road trip with the Hound, and I can all but hear the airhorns of CleganeBowl on the horizon. I do feel like a scene was cut where Arya had a final scene with Sansa though, saying she didn't like everyone treating her like a hero and wanted to just be left alone. She says she has unfinished business in the south, is she going to kill Cersei? She did say she would not return to Winterfell which makes me really sad we didn't give her one more scene with Bran and Sansa.

It's pretty obvious they were tired of trying to come up with something for Ghost to do, so he's been exiled north. Jon doesn't even give the good earless boy a pet for his bravery against the Others.

Jon deserves death for this of course.

The Mad Queens

I don't dislike a "mad queen" arc for Dany. It would have been a really compelling "person vs. self" struggle to frame season 7 around (see my last post on GOT). But at this point, it's a straight up ass pull. It was barely set up in one scene last season and a comment by Sam this season. Yes Dani has had violent moments in past seasons as an unforgiving arbiter of justice, but based on how her use of violence has been portrayed in the past its weird to suddenly use it to inform a "mad queen" arc.  You can't dump this idea on us last minute with three episodes to go. I swear to god if they have Dany die unredeemed from this bout with madness I'm going to riot.

I've previously noted that Dany's whole "break the wheel" bit always feels a little hollow to me. She's not doing anything radically different from her predecessors. She has been cruel and intransigent before, notably in crucifying the Masters in Mereen. However, the whole point of her arc in season 5 (or so I thought) was her moving away from that and learning to compromise and govern. Time and time again: in her liberation of slaves, in her going north to save the realms of men, she has shown herself to be a humane and selfless ruler. Not perfect, but clearly not her father. But here, with 2 1/2 episodes of the show to go, our writers have decided her final arc is going to be "IS SHE A MAD QUEEN?" That shit should have been more or less wrapped up by this point if they wanted to go in that direction, or at least better set up last season.

So, Euron shows up to once again to pull of his favorite move: being exactly where he needs to be at a given time to even the odds for Cersei and fuck up Dany's day. Somehow, ships, as in things on the water, get the drop on dragons, you know, things in the sky that should have seen the things in the water from miles away.

DIDN'T SEEING THAT DRAGON SHOT OUT OF THE SKY SURPRISE YOU AND SUBVERT YOUR EXPECTATIONS!?!?!?!!

Anyway, Euron Sureshot lands three ballista shots on a distant dragon, killing it. It has been pointed out to me that this one was the wounded one. It makes it slightly better, but still doesn't explain how they got the drop on Rhaegal. Nor does it explain the aimbot worthy accuracy of these shots. We see them fire off subsequent volleys at Dany and hilariously miss.

Anyway, then Euron revolutionizes naval warfare in Westeros and uses the ballistas to destroy Dany's plucky little fleet as the five foot bolts disintegrate the ships they hit instead of puching nice little holes in the sides like giant arrows actually would. Anyway, most of her remaining Unsullied presumably drown here b based on the number that join her outside King's Landing. He captures Missandei and nobody else because we needed a named character to die this episode.

How did Euron even know they had won their war vs. the Others? Did Winterfell send an "all's clear" raven? Did they just sit there for weeks on end waiting for Dany to pass by the exact spot? How did they know Dany would sail to Dragonstone and not march down from the North with Jon? Was there a similar ambush waiting at the Trident?

Congratulations show, Euron Grayjoy has now killed as many dragons as did the NK.

So, going into this episode I was like: "Well, Dany's army is depleted, but she still has two dragons so she should just be able to win this thing whenever she wants. The original Targaryen's took this entire continent with only 5000 men and three dragons."

The writers apparently realized this too, and so brought Euron back to even the odds more for Cersei.

It irritates me so much that the writers have made Cersei artificially smart. She makes the boneheaded move of not helping in the war versus the undead, and actually turns out to have made the correct choice. Let that sink in for a minute. She makes the selfish, shortsighted decision that should have bitten her in the ass, and it turns out to have been the correct call. If Tyrion has been artificially dumb recently, Cersei has become artificially brilliant, and I hate it.

I'm So Done

So Dany shows up to pointlessly parley with Cersei.

Immediately you notice that outside the walls of the most populous city in the Seven Kingdoms is apparently a desert wasteland. But whatever, we have two episodes to go and I can't be bothered to care about little details like this anymore

Cersei has a comical number of ballistas atop the walls. And immediately the viewer is like: "Wait, is it even an option for Dany to burn this city anymore?" It seems like these guys will just nail that dragon the moment Dany tries anything. Apparently it is? The dragons have officially become as invincible or vulnerable as the narrative needs them to be at a given moment.

Cersei is so villainous she will do anything except apparently order her archers and ballistas to open up on her hated brother and enemy queen when they are in clear firing range. Drogon clearly landed in range of all these ballistas. You're telling me Cersei didn't tell them to open fire and kill the opponent's last dragon when they had a chance? Maybe they're not as good of marksmen as Euron.

This whole scene is frustrating because Missandei dies for no reason, just offed as a human stake raiser. There is no reason she had to be captured, and no reason for Cersei to kill her. The entire point of having a hostage is to dissuade your opponent from attacking. Cersei realized this with Sansa back in season 3 but apparently not now. Likewise, Rhaegal doesn't die because Dany made a mistake; took him on an overzealous scouting mission or moved south before he had healed enough to fly. There was no scene with Dany tending to her dragon and noting: "he still has a gimp wing." The characters, human and dragon, are just dying randomly at this point unmoored from any of their choices.

Anyway, I guess we're going to get a battle next episode, or something. I'm 81 episodes invested in this show so I am here for the end at this point. But man, my low expectations for this episode were somehow not low enough. If last episode missed on the theming and showed a profound inability to understand the core conflict of Game of Thrones, this episode displays a shocking degree of disregard for its characters.

It's notable that this episode is essentially an overstuffed turkey, with ingredients for three episodes in it. As a result, the pacing feels really off yet again, with a really long opening sequence followed by large jumps in time as the show writers try to get everyone in place for yet another huge battle. And yet, on the brink of the finale to Game of Thrones it couldn't feel smaller or less epic. Cersei is the Queen of a city, one kingdom, and some mercenaries (WHERE ARE MY ELEPHANTS), and Dany has two depleted kingdom's armies at her back alongside the scrappy remnants of her own armies (seriously show, you expect me to believe half of the Dothraki lived through that last episode?) and one dragon. Whereas the stakes for the last one were the FATE OF HUMAN LIFE, now it's which flavor or mad queen do you want on the throne.

Woooooo.

See you next week.

5/3/19 - Root Postgame Report

After a pretty long hiatus and lots of wedding planning, Danielle and I had a moment to sit down and play Root with some friends last night. Thankfully, we had not forgotten all the rule interactions in the interim.

The Players

Megan - The Riverfolk Company
Dave - The Eeyrie
Daniel - The Marquise de Cat
Hubert - The Vagabond (Arbiter)
Danielle - The Lizard Cult

I pulled the position left of Megan, which was super advantageous to my early game as I got first pick of the cards she drew. Danielle, meanwhile, struggled without any bird cards and no way to acquire acolytes.

This was probably the best early game the Eeyrie has ever had, getting out to 5 Roosts by Turn 4. The Lizards starting in the lower right hand corner. While in practice this doesn't lead to any less interaction between the Eeyrie and the Cult, it felt more advantageous to the Birds than them starting in the top left. Megan also had an explosive start on the Otters, and had most of her trade posts out by this point.

My life flashed before my eyes as Favor of the Foxes appeared in her hand, which could have honestly wiped me off the board. Thankfully, Megan did not make a play with it, and I was able to buy it and wipe out some of her Otters with it and bring her more under control. Whereas last game I was able to run away with Otters partially because people never stopped buying my services and funded my late game, I felt like Daniel and I (Megan's primary customers) had a pretty good grasp on when to stop purchasing from her, and Megan hit a wall hard as far as point gains in the late game.

With Favor of the Foxes under my belt, three fox clearings under my control, and a Fox domination card in my hand, I made my play on turn 5 to try for the early win. Despite having two ambush cards good to go, Daniel was able to muster enough forces to push me off the northwest clearing and essentially end my bid for victory. I made a critical decision to recruit into my home clearing instead of adding two to that clearing, meaning I was only defending with 3 and came up short in the battle that followed. You make a mistake, you pay the price.

Domination cards just seem to be a trap, almost always. I was probably as well positioned as I could have been to do this (maybe one more turn of build up would have been worthwhile), and still came up short. If I'd waited another turn though, I would have been at 19 points, which doesn't feel super worth it when you can just coast into the win. As it stands I flipped it at 15 points. Domination cards often feel like if you are in a strong enough position to get the win, you are better off just coasting to the win instead off your normal point gain. The Fox domination card definitely feels like the one you go for with the birds though, for future Eeyrie players who might try the same thing. At any rate, Daniel's invasion more or less put an end to my aspirations, (although playing birds when you don't constantly need to get roosts out is actually kinda liberating I must say). On top of this, Danielle began sanctifying all my shit, which was annoying to say the least.

Hubert played a very farmy game to great effect, I don't think I've seen anyone get as many quests as he did this game. His status as the Arbiter alongside picking up an additional sword early meant that nobody wanted to mess with him, or fight in a clearing with him in it. This allowed Hubert to coast to a relatively easy win off of aiding and the quests. He also managed to screw over Daniel by not exploring the ruins in his clearing and seriously gating the Cats's ability to get the last 10 points they needed to win. On the second to last turn, Danielle made a valiant effort to attack Hubert, more perfunctory than anything else. It was a bloodbath. At the end of the day, Hubert's Arbiter had 6 broken items in his sack, but was surrounded by the bodies of 6 dead lizards. Hubert won the next turn.

The Cats still seem to struggle. This felt like an easier game than most for them because of the absence of the WA, and Daniel still ran out of building slots fast. I love the play pattern of the Cats, but it unfortunately often feels like you are playing to limit other players rather than seek your victory condition. You are supposed to be an obstacle for them to overcome. The biggest problem for cats continues to be retaining control of clearings to build in them, with mercenary use basically mandatory at certain points just to be able to construct things.

The Lizard cult continues to struggle mightily, although granted Dani had a rough hand this game. I do think you need to take advantage of the "recruit" anywhere functionality though and pop into clearings all over the board, provoking people to attack you and give you acolytes because you will control the clearing otherwise. Also, the more I think about it, the more I think Domination Cards are basically tailor made for the Lizard Cult. Your ability to pop across the map with ease and control clearings with Gardens makes achieving them so much easier.

We'll have to wait and see if anyone manages to pull that off next game!