#last scene is of cersei having a breakdown when she finds out about his death

[adecila]

Oh i want one fic, "one", were ned says yes to cersei and becomes joffrey hand and cerseis lover 😭

Oooh this would make for a fun AU. Unfortunately saying yes to Cersei would be a bit ooc, but a good author with the right set up could make it work 😏

So petitioning the capable nedsei writers for this one 🥺🥺🥺

[asherlockstudy]

I get that interview was HBO forced but it sounds insane when last season, he was saying Jaime needed to get away from her for good. I mean no nice post about Gwen after the last ep. I dont believe it was about not wanting to stir the hornet's nest if him and B didnt get together as he posted a huge loving one about Lena and that was a very controversial part of the plot. If hed know posted a gwen one saying"sorry JB didnt get a happy ending but here's me and Gwen in happier times" i dont get it

I think it’s very weird too…Imma analyze it. Not that I’m gonna reach any solid conclusion but I will just lay out all my thoughts.

Whatever the reason Nik doesn’t post or reply publicly to Gwen is, it has nothing to do with his personal preference for Braime or Jaime x Cersei. Even if we make the insane assumption that Nik appreciated that Jaime dumped Brienne to return to murderous Cersei and die with her without serving any purpose in the main plot (what lead actor of 8+ years would ever like being unimportant in the ending plot) and saw “pOeTRy” in it, it still doesn’t explain why he should prefer posting about Lena over Gwen. We would be naive to think he made a post about Lena and not Gwen because he prefers Cersei to Brienne. So, we still have no clear evidence of what Nik’s private thoughts and feelings are for his character after the ending. 

Here’s what we have: 

We have two interviews: one with HBO rofl and one with that journalist who collaborates with HBO and was an insider (I’m not gonna search his name) in which he stans Jaime’s choices, his love for Cersei and the tragic poetry in it all. Then we have him promoting the episodes and the documentary in his instagram and twitter, however he is entirely emotionally detached from his character and his fate. I would say he lowkey looks entertained in his weird af episode promo videos and secretly amused while filming the “thank you” video after the last episode where he says “Come on, it was great” and suggests a petition for an Arya (huh?) sequel.

We have two videos uploaded on yt with him: one is a video of a stalker in which Nik looks uncomfortable and passes the question to the random guy next to him who apparently happens to be a GOT fan, have an elaborate opinion on the last season, hate D&D and think they threw away Jaime’s beautiful character arc. What are the odds…The second is a skit in Jimmy Kimmel in which Nik drags his own character by making him stupid and clumsy, a sad little being because of his maiming and, most importantly, an unrepentant sister fucker. All of Jaime’s worst qualities displayed for laughs, plus that he’s actually a likeable but very stupid person. The skit ends with a dragon randomly burning him and his family alive and those credits

So, we have straightforward criticism towards D&D by Kimmel and NCW actually participates in it. This is what this skit means - that this level of writing, this kind of lame character and that ludicrous death is something that only Benioff and Weiss would like to produce. And, well, the Olsen sisters (although I think they’re cleverer than that). 

So, we have two videos where NCW’s intentions are dubious AT BEST. 

Then we have all the promos. When left to speak on his own, Nikolaj would say how the ending was beautiful and made sense and he once mentioned he sent a letter to thank them for this genius plot…Right. But then when asked or caught off guard (1:04): 

Nobody tries to sugarcoat it, look at the title of the video: … NCW is ‘happy’.  Then of course we have our Lady and Saviour Gwen who tries not to laugh as Nik struggles to find what to say and not just stand up and flee.

Also, this one. The best one: 

I could make a thousand gifs for this but just watch again the entire video:

0:07 - Gwen’s face when Nik says he thought the script was fantastic

1:13 - “N-no..NO!!!” when asked if he would change something in the ending and Gwen’s reaction to that. Then, our leader Gwen proceeds to mock him: “So, it’s an immaculate- It’s immaculate?” to which Nik impulsively replies: “NO!” and goes on “do you ever read a book and think you want to rewrite this?” which implies, that yes he would want to rewrite it but knows he can’t. 

(3:03 - 3:06) - VERY IMPORTANT ONE. When Gwen wondered who was closer to predicting the actual ending, Nik says “I was, yeah” and OMG look at Gwen’s face. It’s very subtle but she’s trying to communicate with her eyes a “WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT” to him without being seen by the interviewer. It’s kind of a wife done with her husband’s shit look tbh, that level of subtlety. And Nik answers back with his eyes in equal subtlety and it’s like he says a “What? I truly was right lol….”. To me, this seems to mean that Nik always knew or feared that D&D would eventually destroy all his work and was eventually proven right. Unless this all is about Dany being killed by Jon but I doubt at this point Nik and Gwen cared enough to go all cryptic and eye communicating for this. No, it was about them. 

3:09 - Nik is surprised and then clearly amused at the information by the interviewer that Kit was the one who came closer with his prediction. He can’t hide his smile and says an ironic “good for him” while looking knowingly at Gwen who then says this must be a lie. This shows that it is known amongst the actors that most of them are disappointed and Kit was one of them. Both Nik and Gwen apparently knew Kit hated his ending too and would never expect this to be how the show would wrap up. BTW that writing and that backlash really got to Kit, I hope he recovers soon. But think about this, Kit went into rehab for stress and alcohol, Emilia was devastated and gave a somewhat concerning interview and Nik’s public behaviour regarding GOT is inconsistent and unpredictable. I am thus assuming the writing of the final season and the backlash fucked them up way more than they let on. 

This interview is a gem but here’s the most important part, perhaps the core of what baffles us: 

1:32 - After all the miserable no-nos poor Nik mumbles, Gwen tells Nik what we all think: “I think it’s just a question, you know? Maybe you want to answer it?”

Of course he’s in a total loss for words. Literally, he doesn’t make any sense. Some incoherent sounds come out of his mouth and that’s it. This can mean two things: either he truly thinks the ending is perfect or the ending made him such a mess that he can’t even process it verbally two years later. 

Either Gwen is much braver and Nik is extemely paranoid or Nik actually has many more restrictions in what he is allowed to say. I believe Gwen wanted Nikolaj to be as open as her about it and she still tries to make him open up but he doesn’t. In all the promos without exception, Gwen looks as if she knows Nik is full of shit and secretly agrees with her. If Gwen knows that for a fact, then we can’t argue and it’s actually what makes sense anyway. Nikolaj agrees with Gwen but is not eager to discuss it openly yet, or ever. This could be because he is very professional or because he doesn’t want to get a bad name as a “backstabber” of his projects or it might be a situation of a more sensitive nature. 

If those rumours that the S8 script was changed are true, then Nik and Lena might have had a serious breakdown with D&D and a negotiation might have taken place. For instance, Nik and Lena were really unnecessary in E6, Nik’s scene in E1 could have been eliminated as well and Lena does not appear in E3. Yes, they are big actors but paying them 1,2 million for every episode seems a tad excessive when Emilia and Kit are now famous too and have like 300% times more screentime. All this is wild speculation but maybe they stretched their appearance in the episodes as much as possible and gave them a good amount of money to agree on the butchering of their characters and their importance as former lead actors. I mean, especially Lena was downgraded to a secondary character in this season. Lena had to really fight to see her salary rise in the previous seasons. And now it’s a million for every episode? Wow. How many minutes was she staring out of the window in S8? Maybe they were silenced and payed a shitload of money to stop complaining and promote the show and praise the writing as what it was supposed to be. Maybe they payed them in order to promote Peter, Kit and Emilia for the Emmys instead, who knows. When so much money is involved, things can get frustrating in ways we don’t even fathom. This is wild and rough speculation but all I’m saying is there may be reasons Nik avoids talking freely about his character that we can’t know. 

Besides, it’s not just a Gwen problem. It is not a Gwen problem. Gwen revealed she sent a “Jaime is a fuckboi” meme to Nik privately and he answered playfully as ever (but again as if he’s in denial). They posted a story together a couple of weeks ago. Nik did not just ignore Gwen’s instagram post. Daniel Portman posted the photo and tagged Nikolaj too. Nik ignored him as well. Bryan Cogman, who Nik and Gwen owe a lot to, commented under the photo in a very sweet and emotional way. Guess what, Nik ignored him too! It’s ridiculous to think Nikolaj has stopped communicating and caring about Gwen AND Daniel AND Bryan just because his character returned to Cersei. Furthermore, the fact that they all keep tagging him shows they don’t think their relationships with him have become tense. 

That’s not it. It’s not about Gwen. The only way that Gwen is involved in all this is that she wants Nikolaj to open up so that he would give a little acknowledgement to her character and the relationship with Jaime because she feels very much for Brienne. I’m sad to say, however, that it seems to me that Nik did not take that blow more lightly than Gwen. In fact, his behaviour is more inconsistent and troubling whereas Gwen’s openness about it made her confront that sore subject more healthily after all. I start believing Nik was actually way more devastated than Gwen. At least Brienne remained a decent character, ever faithful to her ideals, ever innerly strong. Jaime was entirely trashed, let alone that he was supposed to be a main character. If Nik can’t even handle a photo that reminds him of his destroyed character arc, I wouldn’t be surprised. Maybe Gwen wants Nik to open up so much for his benefit as well - he keeps it bottled up and she might know first hand how that affects him.

Long story short, the reasons Nik doesn’t post anything about his feelings for Jaime’s character arc, his relationship with Brienne and his collaboration with Gwen probably are both professional, after begrudging deals and agreements and restrictions from HBO, and very personal, inner and private, as he’s still trying to cope with a disappointment that crushed down on him from what used to be his dream job and a role he hoped would be a (or the) peak of his career. I bet all these years Nik was hopeful Jaime would be extremely important and fully redeemed in the end but also extremely scared and anxious that the writers won’t give him what he hoped for and what made sense. Would I exaggerate if I said this should be the biggest professional disappointment he ever experienced, provided that he didn’t like the character’s ending? 

From everything Gwen has said about him, I have surmised that Nik is very emotional and anxious but with a very blasé and superficially amiable attitude. He avoids expessing emotion in real life which is why he might be dissociating a lot lately. He tries to distance himself from that part of Jaime’s character that involved Bryan and Gwen because this is the part that he loved and lost. Honestly, I can’t think of any other logical reason he ignored Gwen, Dan and Bryan one after the other and never made a post about his own character specifically or his good times with Gwen. It’s obviously not that he suddenly hates all of them to the point of not even replying. Even if HBO restricts him on what he can say in interviews for a while, there is no other explanation for this other than that D&D’s genius writing fucked him up emotionally as much as Emilia and Kit and he does not want to deal with it even though Gwen probably thinks it would be for the best if he did. 

Now after I wrote all this, imagine if Nikolaj actually doesn’t give a shit and is just happy going on with his life while I am here wasting time. But… I don’t think so. I will never not believe Nik didn’t love Jaime to pieces. He had big dreams for this role, I am sure of it. 

[bonesgadh]

Dear favorite meta writer. How do you think GOT should have ended for Gendrya? Pretending that awful and forsaken last episode doesn´t exist. After Arya rode the white horse away, what would you think SHOULD have happened for Gendrya and Arya after that? Something that actually MADE SENSE.

Well, after 8x05′s beautiful ending of Arya with the white horse the only thing that made sense to me was her having her sweet epilogue with Gendry. I remember pretty much everyone in the Gendrya fandom agreed Arya finding happiness with Gendry was obviously the ending they were setting up for her. All the evidence was there, all the hints, the nods to ‘My Featherbed’, the parallels—it seemed like such an obvious path. There are some wonderful metas that explain this better than me. 

After the episode and based on the evidence we gathered and the white horse-black horse symbolisms and all that jazz, I created the following scenario in my head (that crumbled three days later when I stumbled upon those infamous leaks):

The white horse is meant to represent Arya choosing life, right? Both literally and metaphorically. So she uses it to ride away from the destruction and onto safety, saying ‘not today’ one more time to death.

Arya uses the horse to get to Jon (who alongside Sansa and Bran, her home and Gendry are meant to represent her better half).

Very much like their scene from 8x06 Jon is surprised to see Arya in King’s Landing and he is quite scared to see her all bloody and completely shell shocked (I was dying to see Arya suffering from PTSD after being so close to death and witnessing so much destruction, her being completely okay afterwards seemed very unrealistic if you ask me). She has a complete breakdown, she bawls her eyes out and you see her as vulnerable as you have never seen her before.

Dany goes full-on mad Queen mode. She summons all the lords and ladies of the Seven Kingdoms to bend the knee to her and that’s how Sansa and Gendry make it to King’s Landing instead of that stupid council. 

Jon asks Arya to stay in the camp because she is still traumatized by what happened. However she doesn’t listen to him and she sneaks into the square because she knows neither Jon or Sansa are safe and there’s no way she’ll leave them alone.

I wanted to see Arya saving Gendry’s life, to state how she was done with killing and would move on to saving lives. At the ‘bend the knee’ ceremony we see Daenerys demanding Gendry to swear loyalty to her but he refuses. Dany reminds him she legitimized him and he owes her loyalty (which would have been a nice callback to her being certain Gendry would always be loyal to her). Gendry defies her and tells her he will never bend the knee to the woman who destroyed his hometown and he’d rather die than to be in debt with a murderer. Dany declares him a traitor and sentences him to death, and she does the same with Sansa, Bran and Jon.

Arya is looking at this from a hidden spot which would mirror the scene from 1x08 when she sees Ned’s trial. She remembers what happened with her father, how desperately she tried to save him and how she was forced to look hopelessly as they accused him of treason. She doesn’t want Gendry and her siblings to suffer Ned’s fate so she steps forward and saves them, because the four of them are the only things that matter to her in the world.

The lords and ladies of the Seven Kingdoms and their armies, disgusted by Daenerys’ radical approach to rulling and inspired by Gendry’s defiance and Arya’s bravery, choose to rebel against Daenerys. There’s a huge battle and Bran wargs into Drogon to stop him from burning everyone to death and Daenerys dies.

In the aftermath of the battle Arya reunites with Gendry and he thanks her for saving his life, she tells him she didn’t want to loose him the way she lost her father because he is way too important to her. She tells him she rejected his proposal not because she doesn’t love him, but because she got scared and she didn’t think she would survive her mission of killing Cersei. She tells him she is a different person than the one he used to know and that she has done things he can’t even imagine. Gendry tells her he doesn’t care and he loves her anyway, and that he wants to know everything about her pain. Arya tells him the past few weeks have made her realize she wants to be happy and just give herself into feeling after spending years suppressing her emotions. She chooses life and humanity, and she tells him he is one of the reasons she wants to live. 

Because I didn’t give two fucks about the throne or who ended up rulling the seven kingdoms let’s assume we got the same resolution: Bran is king (or someone else for all I care).

The next part is a bit tricky because I wanted Gendry to give up his lordship to go live the quiet and peaceful life with Arya but at the same time I wanted him to stay a lord. What I didn’t want was Gendry as king because, if Arya rejected his proposal because she didn’t want to be a lady, logic dictates she would hate the idea of being queen even more so she would never accept to be with him. I’m more drawn to the idea of Gendry keeping the Baratheon surname but giving up his title.

In the epilogue I wanted them to show us Arya and Gendry living in the Riverlands. Their relationship was born there so it would make a nice parallel to have them retiring to live in those same lands. They are not married (at least for now) but there are some subtle hints that are meant to tell us they are getting to know each other better. Maybe a scene of them just talking, you know? Or doing something sweet together. Walking in the forest (because of the whole forest love-forest lass thing) or riding a horse or staring at the birds or some corny shit. Bonus points if there’s a hint of Arya being pregnant.

This is the ending I envisioned for them. I don’t think I was asking for too much, just a few changes to the ending we actually got. I hope I didn’t bore you with my bad fanfiction :)

And thank you again for saying I’m your favorite meta writer, eres muy linda.

[sailorshadzter]

alright so here’s going to be my thoughts / breakdown of the new trailer. im actually really excited to do this because ive not done a game of thrones trailer before!! 

so i hope you guys enjoy.

also, shoutout to everyone who has taken the time to gif this trailer, i hope no one minds me using their gifs (with the proper credit of course!) 

anyways, under the cut for SPOILERS and length :)

we immediately cut to arya running off, her breathing heavy, she even makes a frightened sound as she takes off. we watch her run, looking over her shoulder, true fear in her eyes and on her face. but i dont think this is fear for herself. i can only assume that these opening seconds are post battle with the ww/nk because she’s covered in blood (also WHO’S blood?) and sweat. something or someone (jon  👀) has sent arya back to winterfell and we all know what the reason is: sansa fucking stark. 

something has struck fear into jon or arya for their beloved sister/cousin and arya is 100% going after sansa. because she looks over her shoulder, i imagine she’s running away from whatever has come for sansa- she’s leading it away, perhaps in hopes that it will give chase to her and give sansa a chance to escape. maybe not, maybe the look over her shoulder is at someone else chasing after her to rescue sansa (jon? the hound? brienne?). either way... this is true fear we see on arya’s face. she’s terrified that something has happened to sansa. 

worse yet... what if she’s running from someone who she loves that’s been turned into a white walker? i hate the thought of that but wow that could be something else, huh. 

what i find really interesting throughout this scene (besides arya’s voice over) is the three bell tolls. they say death comes in threes. the three bell tolls could signify the deaths of the characters we see as they chime (davos, varys, and arya herself / whoever she’s speaking to). i will literally lose my mind if davos dies, i cant even THINK about that. but, its definitely a very real possibility as we move into this final battle. 

arya’s voice over is chilling... i know death... it’s got many faces... i look forward to seeing this one. What i LOVE about this is its all voice over until that final line. she’s saying that to someone on her list. she’s clean in that moment, meaning its before or after the opening moments. my guess is its after and she’s speaking to cersei. cersei has been on her list from the beginning and it’s absolutely without a doubt that arya will rush off to king’s landing to rescue sansa. if cersei doesnt die in childbirth like i think (we’ll talk about that later) it would be arya to get the kill. and i know, the old witch told cersei it would be her brother that killed her... but let’s talk about that for a second

it’s going to be tyrion. he’s going to get them into king’s landing without cersei knowing and he’s going to be the reason they’re able to take cersei out. so really, he’s her undoing. he causes her death. this also feeds into my thought that tyrion won’t stay loyal to dany. if dany lives past the fight with the night king, something tells me she wont want to rush into king’s landing just to rescue sansa. she wont view her as important any longer and wont want to risk harm to herself or her dragons by immediately leaving one fight for the other. not for sansa stark. that will be tyrions breaking point. 

these are a few of the shots we get while bran’s voice over plays. everything that you did brought you to where you are now... where you belong. home.  we also see king’s landing & sam looking over his shoulder with bran in the background. the moment bran says home we’re hit with a shot of dany’s army marching towards winter fell, of course with jon and dany on horseback coming up at the rear? the middle? im not sure but i also dont think it matters much.

i think its obvious this is bran speaking to jon. he’s reminding him that despite this reveal of who his parents really were... he’s still a stark. he’s still home there at winterfell, in the north. he’s still got a family. everything jon has done up until this point has been for the north or for sansa. he went to war with the boltons to take winterfell back, to avenge what happened to sansa, to protect what family he had left. 

next is cersei, she’s clearly overlooking a ship coming into the harbor or someone riding up on horseback / in a wagon. i wont lie, im not versed enough in the ins and outs of king’s landing to know, or if you can even travel from winterfell to king’s landing... but i would assume there’s a way considering the golden company is most likely sailing there from king’s landing???

anyways

i think cersei is watching sansa being brought to her. she’s smirking because she think she’s won. she thinks she’s going to be the queen on the throne in the end of this fight. she’s untouchable. she’s pregnant with the future heir to the iron throne and she has who she believes to be her son’s murderer almost in her grasp. not just that- this is sansa stark, the key to the north. her “brother” is king in the north (well kind of) and now she has leverage against him. her life for something. i cant imagine word of jon’s parentage would have traveled to cersei yet (although... who knows) so she cant use sansa as leverage for jon to give up his claim to the throne. maybe sansa for dany? give up the dragon queen and ill give you back your sister, type thing. im not sure. i truly believe at this point, cersei still hasnt let go her belief that sansa helped poison joffrey & i think that’s the biggest motive for her here. everything else is just gravy. especially if she DOES learn the truth about jon while she’s in her keep. 

yeah so here we have dany and jon riding into winterfell, looking very much like a king / queen riding into battle. i dont have much to say about this moment other than they both look very stoic, not that is surprising for jon. dany seems to be just ahead of him, as if to remind everyone she’s the queen. i do like the contrast of her white outfit compared to the darkness of the dothraki and jon. but those blood red gloves? girl. talk about having blood on your hands.

now this is the part im LIVING FOR

MY GIRL HOLY SHIT.

the shot continues with sansa taking a few steps towards the other side of the walkway, her eyes never leaving the dragons. first of all, can we talk about how all the men in got have reacted to the dragons? THEY COWERED. THEY RAN. THEY FLUNG THEMSELVES ONTO THE GROUND. jon literally threw himself on the ground out of fear and shock. but not this girl. not my stark sisters. they literally show no fear as the dragons fly overhead. 

sansa is wearing the same gown here as she is when she meets with jon and dany. i definitely think this is her watching the arrival of the army and dany. the dragons arent hard to miss and im sure someone alerted her of them being sighted. she’s up there watching their arrival, knowing any moment jon would be back in winterfell where he belonged.

im sure she’s thinking about hundreds of things. how am i to feed all these people without the north starving? how are the dragons to feed without starving us all? why has jon brought her back with him? why do they ride side by side like husband and wife?  part of me wants to believe that this is all planned out ahead of time, but i know it isnt. if jon wants this political agenda to go through the right way he has to make every last detail seem believable. he knows sansa cant lie for shit (bless her heart) and if he doesnt make even her believe he’s with dany, then this whole thing will fall apart. 

he’s doing this for her, after all.

next we see jon already in the crypts and daenerys coming to join him. we have jon’s voice over as she walks they’re coming, our enemy doesn’t tire.   what’s interesting to me is the placement of jon’s words over this particular scene. it pans in to dany looking upset as she approaches jon (who looks downright miserable) as if she means to console him. it’s here that jon says the enemy never tires. are we to take this literally as dany is the enemy? its a trailer so its hard to say. we can only infer things at this point. i definitely believe dark!dany is coming whether this trailer did this or not, so i cant really use it as proof of anything. 

i just find it odd that jon is NEVER smiling or happy (it seems) when he’s with dany. now this post isnt about a ship war (but if you follow me, you already know where i stand) but i find it odd that for the couple we’re supposed to think is end game... they never seem happy. if jon’s in love with dany, why doesnt he show it? in his past relationships we see him smile and laugh. yes, i know, jon is definitely the brooding type but we KNOW he can smile, we’ve seen it before with sansa & ygritte. so why not with dany? that alone is proof enough for me that jon and dany are NEVER going to end up together. 

anyways moving on before the stans come for me  👀

doesnt stop, doesnt feel... Jon’s voice over continues as we flash to Gendy (looking like a whole ass snack, hello) Jorah riding into battle, and Grey Worm with Missandei sharing a kiss. also i think its important that we’re shown them kissing as jon says dont feel, implying that only the living can of course feel, while the night king feels absolutely nothing at all. their kiss is a reminder that happiness can be found even in the darkest of moments (thanks for the quote, albus) and its bittersweet too because this very well could be the last time they see each other. 

(credit to @vavaharrison for this gif as well) 

we cut then to a battle scene with brienne and jaime. i love the background of this scene- all fire and ash, brienne slicing through a white walker (i hope lol) as intense as ever. it cuts to jaime shouting for bronn which has me SHOOK because does that mean something has happened to bronn? is jaime trying to get his attention BEFORE something happens? just needs his attention so he can send him elsewhere on the battlefield? its hard to say. 

looking very closely, jaime is wearing northern armor here, the same set he was wearing in the one set of hbo stills. there’s been a lot of speculation that it’s robb’s armor he’s wearing and i love that idea. 

the scene switches immediately after this and we get something INSANE and AMAZING all at the same time.

without a doubt, that’s sansa there in king’s landing, standing before cersei. i think its safe to assume the person next to her is the commander of the golden company, the uniform he’s wearing is pretty spot on, at least from the distance of the shot. 

obviously they did this for a reason. they dont want us to be 100% but we know. but you cant miss sansa’s frame or the way she styles her hair. even in such a small, far off shot you can tell it’s sansa standing there. you can even just barely make our her fur wrap around her shoulders, the black cloak she wears a dark contrast to the room. 

now, i touched on this earlier... the kidnapping plot. 

i’ve been a big believer in this since i first heard of it. it makes sense, it falls perfectly into the plot.. it works. i wont repeat myself (much) from what i said earlier, but sansa has been brought here because she’s the key to the north & the whole joffrey getting poisoned at his own wedding. cersei blamed tyrion and by default sansa too... because besides sansa, who else could want him dead THAT MUCH? i mean to us, the answer is a LOT of people, but to cersei... sansa is the only answer. she was mistreated by joffrey from the start and he had cut of her father’s head right before her very eyes. of course sansa would want him dead. 

and its so easy to blame her. poor little sansa stark. she’s jealous of sansa, i’ve always thought so. a beautiful girl, well loved by her family and everyone around her. even at king’s landing people were drawn to her. she was a shining example of what a lady was supposed to be, untainted by the darkness like cersei. she was pure, like myrcella was. she would grow to have a nice life eventually, even if it meant she remained married to tyrion. and her own son, evil as he was, he was still hers, he would grow cold in the dirt. cersei needed someone to lash out at, someone to blame. and there was no one better than sansa stark. 

the shot of the hall is followed by that one of cersei, looking teary-eyed and drinking wine.  we already knew she was pregnant (or was she? now im not sure what to think!!) and avoided the wine when talking with tyrion. but here she’s drinking again. we know how much cersei loves her wine. i suppose its safe to assume there’s no more pregnancy, there’s to be no heir to follow after her for the iron throne. and now that jaime is gone from her... there’s no one left in this world that she loves or loves her. that child was her one last chance to start over, to be a good mother, and rule the seven kingdoms. now its all gone. its like she’s asking herself here what’s the point now? why continue? she’s wearing what looks to be a dressing robe, so i can only assume this is after she’s been cleaned up from her miscarriage. maybe she’s even brought sansa in and is talking with her, a call back to the conversations they used to have in the earlier seasons. 

i think we’ll get a lot of drama from this- everyone is going to witness jon losing his mind over sansa’s kidnapping. blaming himself, arya blaming herself, and probably brienne too. let me tell you... i live for that. i think this will be the moment where people realize just how deeply jon feels for her. this will be where the political plot unravels. 

*cue the dramatic music*

we get a shot of the dragons, a repeat of arya seeing the dragons, grey worm putting his helmet on, and an amazing shot of jon in the godswood (which ill talk about below) all while jaime has a voice over i promised to fight for the living... i intend to keep that promise! just like with arya, it starts out as a voice over, but the last line is him actually saying the line to whomever he’s speaking to. i believe this is part of his speech as he pledges himself to sansa / house stark. 

ive read a few posts about this moment- some speculating that there’s someone sitting there that we can’t see, others saying we’re seeing this in the POV of someone walking towards jon. im more inclined to believe the latter. its almost like jon’s waiting there for someone. i think we’d still get a glimpse of skirts if it was sansa or silver hair over his shoulder if it was dany. i guess you could argue it could be arya who’s so small he would obscure her or bran even, but again, i think its most likely this is the pov of someone walking towards jon.

but who?

i think its sansa. my little shipper heart would LOVE to believe this is a secret wedding or the moment they’ll confess their feelings, but its a long shot i know. anyways. if its not sansa... then i dont know. at this point, im assuming this is after jon’s parentage reveal. he’s struggling with who he is. all along he’s wanted to be a stark, not just the stark bastard. now he’s a targaryen? who’s the one person who told him he was a stark when no one else would? Sansa. im not a stark, you are to me. jon doesnt have the stark name, but i do. together, they are house stark. if he married her, he could claim the name he always wanted. it would be an amazing call back to ned & cat under the godswood back in season 1 if we had jon and sansa here as well.

all i can think about when i see these scenes are something i mentioned above: how are the dragons going to feed without putting the whole north into starvation? originally id been worried about the army dany was bringing with her but this... this is the real problem. look at all the bones jon and dany have to cross to get to her dragons. how much livestock and wild animals have died to feed these things? how many more innocent children / people have been killed already in wintertown? that livestock / animals could be feeding the people, but they arent. 

this leads me to this next moment

wow my girl looks so sad here :(

im having a LOT of mixed feelings about what’s got sansa so down. she’s in a new dress entirely (note the neckline) so im not sure where to place this in the timeline of everything. i could refer this moment to SO MANY THINGS. is she watching jon and dany? a new thought that has come to me is... have the dragons burned someone? is this her reacting to someone crying over a dead child / loved one? im having a lot of flash backs to how dany looked when the father brought her his daughter’s charred corpse. 

her lips are parting like she means to say something but cant find her voice. she’s standing in winterfell’s courtyard, so who else is around her? we’re not privy to anyone in the background or before her, so again, we can only infer from what the trailer is giving us. 

is she watching jon and dany as they walk away to visit the dragons? have she and jon just argued? is she watching HIM walk away to brood in the godswood, feeling down himself after learning who his parents were? it could literally be anything that’s making her look this sad. im leaning towards it being jon related, but wow if it were something to do with the dragons burning someone... wow. 

i feel like this is where im going to end.

the rest of the trailer are quick glimpses of scenes and faces. arya fighting with the same background as brienne, tyrion looking hella depressed, drogon hitting us with a fire blast, the dothraki & brienne/jaime/ ect in line to fight, and of course the epic moment where we see the first glimpse of a white walker.

overall, this trailer was great. 

it gave us just enough without being TOO much. i thought id be let down once we did get a trailer only because we’ve been waiting so long!! but it’s amped me up and got me even more excited for the season to come!!

if you’ve made it this far... thanks for reading! lets chat about all things game of thrones! my ask box is always open~! :)

[thousandeyesand-one]

Cersei Lannister with the wits & cunning of Tywin Lannister..

Recently I read an anti's perspective of this scene where cersei is very cunning with her fear mongering. Apparently cersei wasn't lying in this scene about daenerys, she wasn't inaccurate about who the Mad King's Daughter is & every last bit of info she dropped on her. So here's a breakdown of this scene & the amount of "truths & lies" it contains.

This statement coming from cersei is really something considering she has steered the War of the Five Kings which has destroyed the realm, wiped out several noble families & caused innocent lives the count of which is still unknown.

Open Rebellion which happened because of how cersei ended the future of a great house who were actually the crown's greatest ally. Olenna was playing a last move against cersei for justice for her family that is the only reason she allied with daenerys.

•House Tyrell aren't Targaryen Loyalists really! during the rebellion they sided with the Targaryens as long as they were the winning side as soon as Rhaegar died & Lannister's sacked KL they lifted the seige on Storm's end, similarly in the War of the Five Kings they sided with the Crown right after renly died. So, a family who has stayed Loyal to nobody but themselves in the past will have an easy case built against them by cersei. Their past isn't very convincing on their loyalties for Tyrell's bannermen to stay loyal to their Lord Paramount in a state where they side with a foreign army against the crown. Cersei isn't lying here but definitely hand picking selective facts to back her case up.

•Mindless unsullied soldiers or more correctly Loyal unsullied soldiers. When daenerys gave them their freedom back & the right to choose whether they fight for her or not & they chose to fight for her they stopped being mindless. When Kraznys Mo Nakloz shows daenerys the ranks of unsullied more than half of them were of dothraki stock, some from lys & Qarth. They seem to have no allegiance to anyone but their commander unlike the golden company consisting of sell swords from around the world & a number of exiled westerosi men whose only allegiance is to gold not any commander. They aren't mindless atleast not the unsullied with daenerys. But yeah I guess Unsullied in general have that reputation of being mechanical to consequences of war. Again cersei isn't lying here but these are hand picked facts she needed to back her case.

"Unsullied are brave soldiers ... But not warriors. Not knights"

                                                       -Ser Barristan Selmy

While the unsullied are helpless to their own nature to the way that they were created to be as soldiers not warriors or knights. Yet there are those like Ser Gregor Clegane, who was knighted for his sadistic brutality on Princess Elia & her children. Also known for being pretty brainless with his brutality of innocent & women, children & in burning of villages. Rmember the way Lannister men tortured people in harrenhal without question?! If the unsullied are mindless then so is the Lannister army, the Northern army & every other army who fights & follows their commander's orders as in that's what armies do. As of now in the show mountain is just as brainless as any foot soldier in the army of the dead. There is nothing that the Dothraki does that the Lannister men haven't done in a time of war. Dothraki way is the barbaric way, that's the only way they know unlike the Lannisters. So again, cersei hand picked the facts to back her case.

Also I love how they cut to Jaime when cersei says the following..

•Ned Stark's service & loyalty was also rewarded in a particular fashion of unfair brutality by cersei for the sake of her children. Olenna is doing the same in fact her motivations are the same that of cersei's. Cersei was protecting her family Olenna is avenging hers.

•Mad King is cersei's strongest champion in this discussion, she strengthened her own position by using mad king to exploit daenerys & her reputation before she builds one in the eyes of westerosi lords. Cersei knows as much about Aerys & Daenerys as much as the next person in that room. But Ser Barristan Selmy not only served Aerys but also had seen Rhaella, Rhaegar & Daenerys. Other than varys he might be the only person who saw the Last of House Targaryen pretty closely. He thought Daenerys was like Rhaegar who was widely believed to be nothing like the Mad King.

"Prince Viserys was only a boy, it would have been years before he was fit to rule, and ... forgive me, my queen, but you asked for truth ... even as a child, your brother Viserys oft seemed to be his father's son, in ways that Rhaegar never did."

                    -Ser Barristan Selmy ASOS (Daenerys IV)

"I think you are Rhaegar Targaryen's sister," Ser Jorah said with a rueful half smile.

"Aye," said Arstan Whitebeard, "and a Queen as well."

                                                     -ASOS (Daenerys IV)

While Jorah & Whitebeard knew daenerys that well to make that comparison of her to Rhaegar. Tyrion on the other hand knows both cersei & Daenerys well enough. He chose to serve daenerys over his own sister & did her bidding one on one to cersei. Neither does he want daenerys to launch a dynasty nor does he wants to see cersei win. He wants to build a new world with daenerys with the help of the power she holds because according to him, her mind & heart are ultimately in the right place when it comes to the overall picture!

"Cersei is as gentle as King Maegor, as selfless as Aegon the Unworthy, as wise as Mad Aerys. She never forgets a slight, real or imagined. She takes caution for cowardice and dissent for defiance. And she is greedy. Greedy for power, for honor, for love."

                                                -Tyrion Lannister ADWD

Tyrion never refers daenerys in anyway ever as unworthy, mad or cruel, ever! Neither in the books nor on the show. All he says is "Daenerys is not her father" Cersei is wrong with her comparison of mad king & daenerys.

•I agree daenerys has made mistakes in the past, done things that when given a second thought to, come of as cruel. But to remember the fact that she was brought up on the road in exile with an abusive Half-mad brother, whose decent into madness she saw & lived with. Both Jon & Daenerys are Targaryens, both very similar people at the core of their personalities; Innocent & introvert, pure & kind the only reason why Jon is such a flawless beloved character is because he was raised by Ned Stark unlike daenerys who was raised by Viserys & his own twisted perspective of the world & people. Yes She crucified 163 masters of meereen, most of whom had a hand behind the crucifixion of little children at every mile on a post for 163 miles. All those children were brutally tortured so daenerys learns a so called lesson masters wanted to teach her. Maybe not all those masters were behind the said brutality but daenerys is a women in a hurry to establish power in meereen not to enjoy the fruits of power but for the betterment of the mereenese, the slaves & the children. Regardless of the consequences her intentions were never evil.

•About feeding the masters to her dragons. This doesn't happen in the books neither does Ser Barristan dies. So purely from a Show viewer perspective cersei humiliated Ser Barristan Selmy out of his servitude in the Kingsguard, the sworn brotherhood like the Night's Watch whose oath frees one upon their death.

A little history on Selmy; he was sworn into the brotherhood of Kingsguard during the reign of Jaehaerys II who was weak but a fine king Selmy was happy to serve him yet he died quickly after which Aerys II ascended to the throne who wasn't mad initially but soon acquired the said madness & Selmy grew to respect his oath over the king he serves. He fought for Rhaegar at the trident because he believed he would be a better king than his father unfortunately he died too. Leaving Selmy in a clutch of his oath & honor, upon being pardoned by Robert Baratheon he decided to serve him because he was a great knight but even he turned out to be a Bad King. Let's not even talk about Joffery! After being free of the oath that bound him to the Crown he went looking for someone he would follow & serve out of sheer will. Ser Barristan Selmy made daenerys feel closer to her family than Viserys ever could in all the time that she was with him. On the show Selmy dies fighting the harpies in a betrayal, for daenerys this was her losing her family all over again. Arya fed Frey's sons to Walder Frey only on the show by far, sansa fed ramsay to his hounds again only on the show by far & Daenerys fed the men whose betrayal costed her Selmy after finding about jorah's betrayal.

In all honesty she only fed one man to her dragons with an intention to terrify the others into divulging the truth. Yet again cersei hand picked the facts to back her case up.

sure.

A Solution? More like an attempt & a failed one at that!

Cersei is outright lying here, playing with incomplete selective truths. Neither did she depict the past accurately nor the future. Hypocrisy is written all over this scene, This is fear mongering 101.

[boschlingtumbles]

Chapter 39

Ned woke up in his childhood bed feeling tranquil and happy. The last two weeks had been a hurricane of happy chaos, what with trying to find space in their apartment and their lives for a second child. The good news is that Jon was the calmest sweetest baby Ned had ever encountered. The bad news is that Robb was quickly teaching him all his bad habits. One of the Mormont girls was coming to babysit today, and Ned privately prayed for her sanity.

But what was any of that compared to having Catelyn and Robb back? Even the days felt brighter, somehow, without the constant fear nibbling at the edges of his sanity that he was going to lose everything he loved.

Catelyn had already left early that morning to meet up with the girls and get ready for the wedding. The guys hadn’t made much of a plan—all they had to do was throw on their suits and show up—but Ned still planned to get there early to get the ring back from Mace and make sure Robert didn’t need anything.

In the meantime, he was just as happy to catch up with his father, Benjen and Brandon, who was also staying with his family for the wedding. Naturally, the primary topic of conversation was Lyanna.

“I can’t believe she’s with Ashara,” Benjen shook his head over cereal that morning.

“Stop,” Ned rolled his eyes.

“Ashara Dayne,” Benjen repeated gleefully.

“Yes we get it,” Ned scowled, stabbing his spoon into the milk.

“YOUR Ashara!”

“For the love of the gods will you please stop?!” Ned glared.

“Oh, is it weird for you?” Brandon walked into the kitchen smirking. “Knowing that your younger sibling is fucking your ex?”

“Brandon!” Ned protested, finding himself suddenly outnumbered.

“Get it?” Benjen grinned, leaning back in his chair. “Because Brandon and Cat used to boink!”

“Yes, thank you, I get it!” Ned blushed. 

“Only virgins call it boinking, Benjen,” Brandon rolled his eyes.

“I’ve had sex!” Benjen went red, suggesting the opposite.

“Oh don’t worry, what are you, fourteen?”

“I’m eighteen you dick!”

“Well don’t worry, you’ll get whomever Lyanna passes down to you,” Brandon said serenely.

“What?” Ned laughed. 

“I’ve realized it’s our tradition. I passed Cat on to you, you passed Ashara on to Lyanna. Wonder who she’s going to give to Benjen. Better hope it’s not Robert!”

“Shut up!!” Benjen whined.

“Oooh are you going to stand up and object at the wedding?” Brandon teased. “Say the Lannister girl can’t marry him, he’s yours by Stark family law.”

“Stoooop!”

“As best man, I cannot condone such behavior,” Ned pretended to take Brandon’s suggestion seriously. “He’ll have to choose someone else.”

“Who else is there?” Brandon pretended to think. “Rhaegar’s dead, that wasteoid over in Essos is already married...”

“Howland Reed,” Ned provided triumphantly with a smirk. “They dated in third grade. She beat up some bullies who were teasing him and he gave her a ring pop.”

“Good family, the Reeds,” Brandon nodded seriously.

“I hate you guys,” Benjen slid down in his seat.

“And he’s a northerner. You’d still be in the neighborhood!”

“Where’s Barbrey,” Benjen asked, in a patently obvious attempt to change the conversation from his impending romance with Howland Reed.

“Barbrey is a delightful girl but I feel our time together has run its course,” Brandon began, a trifle pompously.

“She dumped you, didn’t she?” Benjen asked drily.

“Not in those words. Or any words really. But I assumed as much when she keyed ‘Brandon Stark has a tiny cock’ across the hood of my car,” Brandon admitted.

“Oh wow, Brandon, I’m so sorry,” Ned frowned. Cat had said there was a rumor going around that Jon was Ashara and Brandon’s. Competing against another rumor that Jon was his and Ashara’s.

“Was it because of the thing with Ashara?”

“No it was because I have a tiny cock,” Brandon rolled his eyes. “Of course it was. I could tell her the pictures were fake until I was blue in the face. I guess when you’re caught with your pants down as many times as I’ve been, it rings a little hollow.”

“Maybe if Lyanna called her to explain,” Ned began.

“Look, it’s really not a big deal. We were on our last legs and there’s a certain dramatic irony to her dumping me over the one girl I DIDN’T cheat on her with,” Brandon grinned. “You know I actually did have the girl they photoshopped Ashara’s head onto? Over my office desk.”

“Don’t tell father,” Ned wrinkled his nose in distaste.

“Why is it that everybody gets to have sex but me?” Benjen sulked. “It’s not like I’ve taken an oath of celibacy!”

“Don’t tell me what?” Rickard Stark asked, as he walked in with Jon and Robb in each arm. “Ned help me, I think my back’s about to give out. I can’t believe I used to do this with you and Lyanna. What are you feeding these boys?!”

“I’ve got you,” Ned cooed as he took Robb, letting Rickard shift Jon off his hip and into both arms.

“Brandon was just telling us how he had his aide in his office—“ Benjen began.

“Going over the latest tax proposals from the city,” Brandon interjected hastily. “They’re outrageous father, the northern part of the city might me the biggest but it’s also the poorest and these rates are tyranny!”

“You don’t have to get me started,” Rickard shook his head, and that was all it took to send them spiraling down a rabbit hole of local politics. Ned took some comfort in the way that as much as his life changed, the people in it didn’t change at all. It was nice to know there were some people he could always count on.

“Want to do some work on the backyard porch?” Benjen asked Ned hopefully. Ned laughed. The backyard porch had been a construction project for as long as Ned could remember. Rickard always had a vision of what his backyard could look like, a vision that seemed to hover tantalizingly out of reach of reality. The number of weekends he and Robert had spent in high school trying not smash their thumbs in with hammers as they drank beers and Lyanna made fun of them from where she was suntanning on a beach towel nearby. And now that project had become Benjen’s. Someday it would be Robb and Jon’s.

“You shouldn’t let Brandon get to you,” Ned said, a little shyly, as they set out for the garage to get the toolbox. “The right girl is worth waiting for.”

“Says the guy who has insanely gorgeous girls chasing him without doing a thing,” Benjen growled. “I will have you know that the shy awkward thing only works for you and literally nobody else.”

“Good thing you’re not shy and awkward,” Ned pushed him. 

They spent a companionable morning dismantling the steps down to the lawn, which Rickard had decided were the wrong height and width. It was with some surprise that Ned looked down at the time and realized he would have to make good time to get to the Sept an hour early.

“You won’t forget to give the babysitter my number?” Ned called over his shoulder as he frantically knotted and reknotted the hideous tie Cersei had provided him. 

“Yes, stop worrying,” Brandon rolled his eyes. “And you can knot that as many times as you like, it won’t make it any less ugly.”

“You’re right,” Ned admitted, to which he wasn’t sure. “Be good,” he told the boys, kissing both on the crown of their head.

“No kiss for me?” Brandon pretended to pout. Ned gave him the middle finger and ran out.

He made good time to the sept, trying to smile as a valet hurried to assist him with his car. The place was huge, and he was a little bewildered as to where he should go. He shot a quick text to Robert as he walked in.

The entry hall was overrun with Lannisters. Ned felt his feet freeze as he stared at the scene in horror. How had they crammed so many blond-haired arrogant looking individuals into one place.

“Hullo,” Ned looked down as he felt a tug at his pants. A small skinny blond haired boy of about eight was looking up at him. “I’m Tyrek.”

“I’m Ned,” Ned said, swallowing a laugh. “Have you seen the bride or the groom by any chance?”

“Cersei is in the garden with Uncle Tywin,” Tyrek told him solemnly. 

“Uh right,” Ned felt a shiver go down his spine. Cersei didn’t need to know he was here. “What about Robert? The groom?”

Tyrek shook his head. 

“Okay,” Ned said uncertainly. “I’m just going to look for him...” he tried to pry Tyrek’s sticky hand off his suit pants.

Once disentangled, Ned set off to find the groom.

He thought he’d had some success when he spotted Robert’s father, waving a glass of red wine and laughing to someone.

“Mr. Baratheon!” Ned said hopefully.

“Ned Stark, as I live and breathe,” Steffon Baratheon grinned. “You’ve met Tywin Lannister haven’t you?”

Ned froze, as the man he was talking to turned around.

“I’m not sure we’ve had the pleasure,” Tywin drawled. “But of course I know you. You’re the boy from the police video.”

Ned stiffened, not sure what to say. If Steffon noticed something was amiss however, he did not let on.

“I keep saying Tywin, the only cure for a nervous breakdown is sex. Hot dirty sex in a semi-public place,” Steffon elbowed Tywin, who was busy incinerating Ned by death glare.

“So nice to see you both, I’m very happy for Cersei and Robert,” Ned stammered before excusing himself. He wiped a bead of sweat off his forehead, convinced he could still feel Tywin’s stare digging into his back.

Fortunately the next familiar face was a friendlier one.

“Mace!” Ned called, spotting the Tyrells as they entered. 

Mace gave him a slightly harried smile, trying to balance as he was his mother’s handbag, a four year old child, and a wedding gift.

“If you’ll just excuse me, for a second,” Mace said to his wife and mother, neither of whom was paying him the slightest amount of attention.

“This must be Loras,” Ned smiled at the boy, an elfin looking creature with long honey brown curls. He seemed to have very little of his father in him, which was not necessarily a bad thing. “Here let me help you with that,” Ned took the gift from Mace’s other hand, allowing him to rebalance.

“Thanks. The sitter fell through,” Mace sighed. “This morning was a nightmare trying to get Loras into his little suit. Alerie has been in a panic that she’s offended Cersei somehow and went out and got the most ridiculously expensive crystal vase as a wedding present and my mother went through my credit card statements and found it and the two have been going at it hammer and tongs,” he looked dolefully at his son. “At this point I’m just hoping they kill each other.”

“Well I can put this down for you with the other gifts at least,” Ned offered. “Do you have the ring? I just don’t want to forget...”

He trailed off at the look of horror on Mace’s face.

“Mace Tyrell, you didn’t!” Ned growled.

“It’s back in Highgarden! Shit, I can picture exactly which drawer it’s in!”

“I don’t care which drawer it’s in! You literally had one job to do!!! I can’t tell Cersei we don’t have a ring, she’ll kill me! And then Jaime will kill me! And then Tywin will kill me!”

“Robert might also kill you,” Mace offered weakly.

“NOT HELPFUL!”

Robert wouldn’t really kill him, would he? Oh gods, he might. He was the best man, this was literally the only thing he had to take care of today. He was a terrible best man and a terrible friend and what in seven hells were they going to do?!

“Okay the pocket squares are terrible but you look like you’ve seen a ghost,” Thoros ambled up to them. Somehow the outfit seemed even uglier on him, but Thoros wore it with a sort of cheerful indifference.

“Mace... forgot the ring,” Ned bit out.

“I didn’t mean to!” Mace wrung his hands.

“We have to tell Robert. Have you seen him?”

“I haven’t.”

“Well Steffon is here, so he must be somewhere,” Ned frowned.

The three of them proceeded to search every nook of the sept, a process that took some thirty minutes.

“It’s his wedding! Where the heck is he?” Ned fretted. Should he have called him this morning to make sure he was up? He thought Stannis would do that! Should he call him now? He felt his pants pocket for his phone, but it was nowhere to be found. Fuck, he couldn’t have lost it already, he had just gotten it replaced!

“Okay, we clearly need to find a substitute ring,” Thoros said slowly. “One that’s nice enough that Cersei won’t freak out about the wedding photos.”

“It’s going to have to be REALLY nice,” Ned frowned. 

“So let’s see,” Thoros said, eyeing Mace. “Who on earth might possibly have an incredibly expensive ring that we can substitute?”

Mace shrugged.

“Like say a sixty thousand dragon ring?” Thoros prodded.

“I mean we can look around the wedding guests, but that’s super high end,” Mace scratched his head. “And we can’t ask anyone who might tell other guests.”

“Oh we should definitely borrow it without asking,” Thoros said bluntly.

“See when you take something that doesn’t belong to you without permission, it’s stealing. It doesn’t matter if you eventually intend to return it,” Ned scrunched his face. Thoros was a nice guy, but Ned felt like he had missed some basic ethics classes at some point in his life.

“Right, Mace. Who could we steal a very expensive ring from that you would be in a very good position to return it to after the wedding?” Thoros stared at Mace, ignoring Ned entirely.

“Oh no,” Mace’s face went ashen. “You can’t possibly mean...”

“Gam Gam!” Loras waved over Mace’s shoulder. “Look, Gam Gam!”

“You can’t possibly be serious,” Mace hissed.

“Where’s my favorite boy?” Olenna Tyrell approached and lifted Loras from Mace’s grasp. Ned took a second to covertly study her ring. It was really nice. Three rubies and two diamonds in an alternating pattern. One might even say the rubies were Lannister red.

“Now who isn’t serious boys? You look frightfully glum for a wedding,” Olenna eyed them suspiciously.

“Nothing mother, I was just explaining a joke I’d heard,” Mace shifted from foot to foot.

“See that’s your problem dear, you’re supposed to tell the joke not explain it,” Olenna rolled her eyes. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to take my grandson back over to his birdbrain of a mother. Hopefully that will keep her occupied, I really don’t have time to babysit the two of you. I have my eye on bigger game.”

“Do NOT steal my mother’s ring,” Mace whispered angrily.

“Of course not,” Thoros said amiably, and Mace’s shoulders dropped in relief.

“You’ll steal her ring,” Thoros patted him on the back. 

“What?! I don’t think you understand what my mother would do to me if...”

“Ned, tell Robert he will have a very lovely ring. We’re taking care of it,” Thoros slung a not entirely friendly arm over Mace’s shoulder.

“Thanks,” Ned gave Thoros a relieved smile. Now to find Robert... well he had looked in just about every room in this sept. He had to be outside in the grounds.

Ned walked into the gardens and looked around. Guests were mingling and he could hear the musical laugh of Cassana Baratheon from the center of a group of admirers. He edged a little closer to see if Robert was with his mother—was Cassana Baratheon wearing a white dress? Nope nope nope, Ned backtracked. He wanted no part of that.

“Pssst!” There was a whisper from a grove with a little shrine. Ned looked around but didn’t see anybody.

“PSSST!”

There it was again, louder! Hesitantly, Ned drifted toward the sound. 

“Stark!” The voice was in an urgent undertone, and Ned took another step toward the trees. Only for someone to grab his arm and pull him behind the shrine.

“Hey! Who the hell—Hoster?” Ned blinked, to find his father-in-law staring at him.

“Stark, I need to speak to you,” Hoster Tully said formally and a little stiffly for someone who was lurking in the dark corners of a garden to spring out at people.

“I have repeatedly attempted to contact Cat. Phone calls, texts, an old fashioned letter... it’s not like her to ignore me like this!”

“I believe Catelyn made her feelings about your behavior quite clearly,” Ned said uncomfortably.

“Listen, I’m not... can you just arrange a meeting? I have to apologize.”

Ned had to stop his jaw from dropping. Hoster Tully, apologize?

“I can’t lose my daughter over this. And I don’t know when I’ll have another chance to see her in person, if this keeps up. Can you help me? Please?” Hoster Tully ground out the last word as though it were physically painful.

Ned shifted uncomfortably. Cat had been very clear about her disinclination to speak to her father for the next decade, at best. But he was her family. Just the thought of something coming between him and his own father and not being able to fix it gave Ned a lump in his throat. Cat would be annoyed with him, but didn’t Hoster deserve one more shot to make things right?

“Um I’ll see what I can do,” Ned said tentatively.

“I appreciate it. I do. I think you are a good man, Eddard. I am sorry if I overlook that. I want more for Catelyn than what you can give her, but I have always thought you were a good man,” Hoster said bluntly.

Ned rolled his eyes. On the other hand, maybe he could just say nothing and leave his obnoxious pill of an in-law to stew in dark corners.

He mulled the dilemma as he trudged back toward the sept. He wished he could tell Robert about the interaction he’d just had, maybe get his thoughts. Instead, he was nearly flattened by Jaime Lannister, running around a corner.

“Stark!”

Ned sighed. Why did he always run into Jaime when he was already severely rattled?

“Look, it’s not like a super big deal or anything, and you shouldn’t worry but the thing is Cersei is, um, missing,” Jaime coughed.

“Missing?” Ned stared.

“Temporarily,” Jaime hastened to add. “Totally fixable. Just don’t tell Robert. Keep him distracted, okay? We’ll find her and he doesn’t need to be any the wiser.”

Jaime ran off. Ned continued to stare after him. 

No ring. Missing bride. And where in the seven hells was Robert?!

[kartiavelino]

Why Game of Thrones’ Final Season Was Always Destined to Disappoint

Endings are hard. Any writer will tell you that, but none will mean it more than the creator of a TV series when they are talking about their series finale, the culmination of their work that will largely dictate the entire show’s legacy. The Sopranos ended in 2007 and fans still argue over hits controversial ending. Lost caused online riots with its 2010 series finale. Dexter‘s ending is basically a punchline.  But no show’s ending has caused a stir quite like Game of Thrones, with the HBO fantasy hit bringing its epic saga to a controversial end on Sunday night, something its showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss have long been preparing for. (Read our recap, but know this article is long and full of spoilers.) “We’ll be in an undisclosed location, turning off our phones and opening various bottles,” Weiss told Entertainment Weekly of the duo’s plans for the big night. “At some point, if and when it’s safe to come out again, somebody like [HBO’s Thrones publicist Mara Mikialian] will give us a breakdown of what was out there without us having to actually experience it.” It’s likely Benioff and Weiss, who brought George R.R. Martin‘s Game of Thrones: A Song of Ice and Fire to life in 2011, turning the epic book series into the world’s most popular TV show, have been keeping their phones off as of late, as the highly anticipated final season, which took two years to make before finally premiering in April, has been, to put it bluntly, a massive disappointment to a majority of the fanbase. So much so that some disgruntled viewers are petitioning for a remake of the eighth season “with competent writers,” according to a petition started on change.org. At the time this article was published, it had well over 1 million signatures (aka the viewership of a CW show, so small but still kind of mighty).  Game of Thrones‘ fall from grace has been swift and near-unprecedented, though it’s not unheard of for fans to not like how their favorite show ended; it’s the norm.  Still, the final six episodes of Game of Thrones just highlighted the obvious: the show was kind of screwed once it caught up to and surpassed the books, as Martin is still chugging away on those last books, despite telling Weiss and Benioff years ago he’d probably be finished by the time they were.  “I can give them the broad strokes of what I intend to write, but the details aren’t there yet,” he once told Vanity Fair. “I’m hopeful that I cannot let them catch up with me.” Oops.  There was definitely a shift once the TV series surpassed the books in season six. The dialogue sounded a little more modern, with the word “man-bun” even finding its way into the script. There were less intimate conversations, more battles and bloodshed. The pacing picked up, and we mean really picked up, going from zero to light-speed. Still, Game of Thrones was appointment television, possible the last vestige of it in the new world of streaming services dropping entire seasons of a show all at once. And it was still one of the best shows on television, with the jampacked trophy case to prove it.  But then the final season premiered, delivering disappointment after disappointment, leaving fans to cry “Where is my show?!” like Daenerys (Emilia Clarke) crying “Where are my dragons?!” in season two, a far simpler time. It’s not just the fans expressing their befuddlement over what the hell happened to the show that delivered defining and iconic moments like Ned Stark’s (leading man Sean Bean) death in season one and the Red Wedding, which has lived on as one of the best devastating scenes in TV history. Even the actors have become more vocal about their conflicted feelings about the direction the show had gone in in its final two seasons. (And that’s not including the Internet’s new trend of looking back on interview the cast did leading up to the final season and reexamining their now questionable answers and facial expressions.)  Conleth Hill, who played Varys, the always-plotting eunuch, spymaster and Master of Whispers that finally met his end when Dany learned of his treason, was still emotional about his exit on the show when talking to Entertainment Weekly, opening up about his frustrations with his character’s role on the show in the back-half of its run.  “That’s been my feeling the last couple seasons, that my character became more peripheral, that they concentrated on others more,” he said. “That’s fine. It’s the nature of a multi-character show. It was kind of frustrating. As a whole it’s been overwhelmingly positive and brilliant but I suppose the last couple seasons weren’t my favorite.” He then pointed to what he believed to be GOT‘s big shift, which of course was when the show caught up and surpassed Martin’s text.  “In a way, that was lost when we got past [the narrative in George R.R. Martin’s] books. That special niche interest in weirdos wasn’t as effective as it had been. Last season and this season there were great scenes and then I’d come in and kind of give a weather report at the end of them—’film at 11,'” Hill explained. “So I thought he was losing his knowledge. If he was such an intelligent man and he had such resources, how come he didn’t know about things? That added to my dismay. It’s now being rectified with getting a great and noble ending. But that was frustrating for a couple seasons.” Even the actors who have remained right in the middle of all the action have opened up about their struggle to adjust to the fast and furious pacing of seasons seven and eight in comparison to the slow and steady nature of the earlier seasons.  “We’re used to having a whole season to get to a point,” Nikolaj Coster-Waldau told Vanity Fair. “Now suddenly, a lot of things happen very quickly.” One of those things was his character Jaime Lannister’s Gossip Girl-reminiscent love triangle in episode four of the final season.  In one episode, Jaime, who had left Cersei to fight for the living and knighted Brienne, slept with Brienne, chose to stay in Winterfell, but then changed his mind and left to go back to Cersei in King’s Landing. This came after a seven-season redemption arc, featuring hard lessons of growth and countless moral struggles and the loss of his sword hand, which he longed to believe the very best thing about him and defined his own self-worth for so long. Like Jaime, we slowly discovered who the man was underneath the Kingslayer bravado.  We don’t see him struggle with this internal battle, continuing Jaime’s long-standing inner-conflict between the man he wants to be, the Kingslayer the realm has long believed he is and who he really is. Instead, we got a long, unnecessary and unrewarding final battle between him and Euron, the steampunk pirate bedding Cersei, before he finally reunited with his twin sister and true love, with the couple ultimately dying in am embrace as the world crumbles atop them, fulfilling the line Jaime told Bronn (Jeremy Flynn) about wanting to die in the arms of the woman he loves. Full-circle? Sure. Satisfying? Meh.  “Trying to connect the dots between the scenes was a little complicated because you invest so much time, so many years in these characters, so when suddenly you find out that Jaime comes back and his son has committed suicide,” Coster-Waldau said. “There’s so many things that obviously you can’t go through, on-screen, all of these moments, but you have to still walk through them in your mind, if you’re an actor, at least talk about them. There was a lot of those connecting the dots throughout.” The off-screen connecting of dots is a double-edged sword in the TV world: While viewers want to see character learn new revelations and react accordingly, there’s only so ways to share information the audience already knows without it starting to sound like a Wikipedia entry or an exposition dump that wastes precious minutes of what little time the show has left.  It’s a task writer and co-executive producer Bryan Cogman, who penned season eight’s second episode (the most celebrated of the final season episodes), “A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms,” which featured a lot of characters reuniting after years apart and many highly anticipated moments fans had been looking forward to for quite some time.  “This was the most difficult script of the 11 I’ve written for Game of Thrones,” he told Entertainment Weekly of writing the episode, which he compared to penning a play. “The big challenge was not writing a Wikipedia page. In fact, my first draft was a Wikipedia page. The way it works is the showrunners return a Final Draft document with notes written in red in the margins. They returned my first script with a sea of red.” The hour proved to be a necessary respite from the breakneck pace and epic battle scenes that Game of Thrones seemed to have preferred since passing the books, and it was a welcome break for Cogman especially heading into the CGI-filled carnage that was to follow.  “There was such a breakneck pace to season seven that I was delighted when the [showrunners] proposed an episode of just spending time with characters in this space,” he said.  And yet, despite the character-driven episode, so many major moments—including one the entire story has centered on—have happened off-screen. How did Arya and Sansa react when they learned Jon’s true identity? Your guess is as good as ours. So Euron just knew where Missandei was going to be after his fleet destroyed their ships and that she happened to be one of Dany’s most trusted friends and advisers? Sure! Did you know that Arya had to strike that fatal blow to the Night King in that exact spot to truly kill him? You wouldn’t unless you watched Weiss and Benioff’s “Inside the Episode” featurette after your Xanax kicked in following the battle of Winterfell.  For a show that used to happily live in the delicious tension between characters attempting to read each other as information proved to be the ultimate weapon, Game of Thrones‘ new strategy of kill first, don’t even bother offering explanations or answers to anything has angered many viewers, none more so than the handling of the end of the Night King’s storyline and Daenerys ultimately becoming the Queen of Ashes. Let’s start with the Night King, who was a creation of the show and has been teased to be the ultimate big bad of the story since the very first scene of the show. His shadow has loomed over the political machinations of the characters for years, with most of the characters deciding to put their differences aside and unite to win the Great War, minus Cersei because…duh.   So expectations going into episode’s three massive battle were higher than the Wall the Night King brought down in the season seven finale. Winter wasn’t coming; it was here, and fans were poised to said goodbye to many beloved characters and possibly see the gang take a serious “L” as the Night King seemed to be unbeatable.  But by the end of the 82-minute episode, the Night King was taken out with a single blow. A. Single. Blow. While we have no issues with who wielded the dagger (Arya becoming the unlikely Kingslayer was an inspired and fitting narrative choice), we take issue with how it went down. All of this build up for…that? For the first time in pop culture history, we were hoping for that ridiculous moment where the villain holds off on killing the hero to give us their entire backstory and provide answers. We got nada. So eight seasons of build-up and mythology was dealt with, with the show ready to wash its hands of its fantasy elements completely, an especially maddening choice when we’ve been lead to believe that Bran was going to be an integral part of the story, not just a plot device to lure the Night King. (Also, remember when prophecies were supposed to matter?)   Another crucial misstep made by the showrunners was their pimping out of “The Long Night,” which they teased would feature the battle sequence to end all battle sequences. (OK, we’ll admit, the media played a large part in this, too, hyping episode three like our jobs depended on it. Which they sort of did, so forgive us our sins.)  When the PR blitz for the final season first began, the big focus was on how the battle sequence in episode three was going to be something that has never been done on television before, even bigger than the iconic 40-minute long sequence in Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, their inspiration and benchmark. GOT‘s version? Basically double that sequence, with 82-minutes of all-out war helmed by Miguel Sapochnik, the award-winning director responsible for “Battle of the Bastards” and “Hardhomme.”  750 people working on the episode. 55 consecutive nights. 11 weeks. Three locations.  “What we have asked the production team and crew to do this year truly has never been done in television or in a movie,” Cogman told EW. “This final face-off between the Army of the Dead and the army of the living is completely unprecedented and relentless and a mixture of genres even within the battle. There are sequences built within sequences built within sequences. It’s been exhausting but I think it will blow everybody away.” With this kind of hype and hyperbole, the pressure was on for GOT to deliver. And it did. Sort of.  The episode, the longest in GOT‘s history, was intense and high-pressure, never getting the audience a chance to settle in. That is if they could see what was happening on-screen.  As “The Long Night” was airing, many viewers complained on social media that they couldn’t see anything happening as it was just too dark. While some think it added to the horror and felt in-line with how the characters likely felt during the chaotic battle, others were just annoyed. Either way, it’s a valid and fair criticism, especially when HBO is subscription based. For cinematographer Fabian Wagner, the man responsible for lighting the episode, this was a non-issue. “I know it wasn’t too dark because I shot it,” he simple told TMZ.  OK then. “A lot of the problem is that a lot of people don’t know how to tune their TVs properly,” Wagner later told Wired in an interview. “A lot of people also unfortunately watch it on small iPads, which in no way can do justice to a show like that anyway.”  “Game of Thrones is a cinematic show and therefore you have to watch it like you’re at a cinema: in a darkened room,” he continued. “If you watch a night scene in a brightly-lit room then that won’t help you see the image properly.”  HBO And besides, it wasn’t about the deaths (mostly secondary characters) or destruction, even if we’d been lead to believe that it what this episode was supposed to be about.  “Personally I don’t have to always see what’s going on because it’s more about the emotional impact,” said Wagner.  Here’s the problem with that: they keep telling us that, but not really showing it. The final season seems to be almost all spectacle, intentionally so. Just look at what Benioff told EW of their initial pitch to HBO for Game of Thrones, how they sort of used the relationships as a Trojan Horse to sneak in their plans for the epic battles to come down the kingsroad.  “The lie we told is the show is contained and it’s about the characters,” he said. “The worlds get so big, the battles get so massive.” So massive that HBO would eventually increase their already staggering $5 million (per episode) budget to more than $15 million an episode for the final season. And they were willing to spend even more on Game of Thrones, one of their most commercially and critically successful series ever. (It averaged 30 million viewers per episode and has a record number of Emmy wins, not to mention the global merchandising market.)  “[HBO] said, ‘We’ll give you the resources to make this what it needs to be,'” Weiss told EW, Benioff added, “HBO would have been happy for the show to keep going, to have more episodes in the final season.” It was Benioff and Weiss’ decision to end the series, and to do so with two shortened final seasons, even with HBO offering them anything they wanted, which makes their choice to give themselves such a small amount of time to bring such a massive and epic story to a close in a way that respects the characters and its dedicated audience all the more frustrating. “We always believed it was about 73 hours, and it will be roughly that,” Benioff said of their decision. (They also once envisioned a two-hour wrap-up movie that would have a theatrical run, which in hindsight, was a very good call for HBO to nix.) Given how successful Game of Thrones is, possibly the most successful TV series of all-time, it makes sense Benioff and Weiss, who learned the broad strokes of Martin’s intended ending back in season four, would want to go out on a high note, not a whimper like so many once-beloved series before it.  “We want to stop where we—the people working on it, and the people watching it—both wish it went a little bit longer,” Benioff explained. “There’s the old adage of ‘Always leave them wanting more,’ But also things start to fall apart when you stop wanting to be there. You don’t want to f–k it up.” Of course, they did sort of f–ki it up, largely because of the limited amount of time to get their massive laundry-list of s–t done in a realistic way that doesn’t undo or ret-con eight seasons worth of their iconic characters’ journeys, decisions and motivations. (Remember when Tyrion was the savviest and smartest person in the game? Those were the days.) While there’s been many storytelling casualties in this truncated approach to the series’ end, there’s been no greater victim that Daenerys Targaryen, with the Mother of Dragons actively choosing to murder thousands of innocent people in “The Bells,” despite the fact that the city and its troops had surrendered. Like Usher, Dany and Drogon chose to let it burn, going on a complete rampage that devastated the city she once vowed to save (never mind that the only part of King’s Landing she chooses not to bring fire down upon is the Red Keep, where her ultimate target Cersei was hanging out, ripe for a long-awaited confrontation).  A lot of people, including those who’ve named pets and even children after Dany after her many badass moments over the series, were upset over this turn for their chosen queen.  The thing is the seeds for this eventual turn by Dany to embrace her House’s words “Fire and Blood” and succumb to the long-standing belief that all Targaryens have the potential to go mad with power (Shout out to her dad, King Aerys II Targaryen aka the Mad King) have been planted, so it wasn’t a total shock that she went the Mad Queen root. Again, like with the Night King, it’s not what they chose to do but how they chose to do it. After watching Dany fight tooth and nail for the weak and innocent throughout the series run (even showing off her affinity for somewhat alarming vengeance in just straight-up burning her enemies), her transition from the Mother of Dragon to the Queen of the Ashes happened so quick it felt like we had whiplash; it also didn’t feel earned, nor did the sudden distrust of Dany by her advisers and other characters after they championed her for seasons.  Yes, she’s made questionable and eyebrow raising decisions (murdering Lord Tarly and Dickon Tarly was not a good look), but she’s also saved their asses. Without Dany, her dragons and her loyal army made up of the Dothraki and Unsullied, the North would’ve been massacred by the Army of the Undead. No questions asked.  While it would make sense that the loss of two of her most beloved and trusted advisers, Jorah (Iain Glen) and Missandei, along with one of her dragons (RIP Rhaegal), combined with the betrayals of Jon, Tyrion and Varys would no doubt lead to Dany’s emotional stability being tested, the character we’ve watched evolve over eight seasons would not just murder thousands, possibly hundreds of thousands, of innocent people because she was having a bad day. She just wouldn’t. (The choice to not show a close-up of Dany at all once she decides to ignore the bells and give into her rage was a baffling choice as well, though Clarke did extremely compelling work in the short scene in which she chooses revenge over mercy.)  She went from complicated hero to cardboard cut-out villain in an instant, and she deserved better—so did the viewers. We wanted her descent into madness to feel earned, not rushed and cheap, actually lessing the impact of her death at the hand of her love, nephew and possible usurper, Jon Snow.  Imagine if we had an entire season of watching Daenerys actually rule, discovering that her dream of the Iron Throne may not have been all it was cracked up to be, slowly giving in to her paranoia and fury. The explanation offered by Benioff and Weiss for Dany’s decision during the “Inside the Episode” featurette following “The Bells” was frustrating, to say the least. (Never forget when they reasoned that Rhaegal died because Dany “kind of forgot” about Euron and the Iron Fleet!) “There is something chilling about the way Dany has responded to the death of her enemies,” Benioff said, citing her reaction to her brother Viserys’ death in season one.  Of the crucial moment Dany chooses violence, Weiss explained, “I don’t think she decided ahead of time that she was going to do what she did. And then she sees the Red Keep, which to her is the home that her family built when they first came over to this country 300 years ago. It’s in that moment…when she’s looking at that symbol of everything that was taken from her when she makes the decision to make this personal.”  And that is why Daeneyrs decided to ruin everything she had been working toward her entire life, because she saw the Red Keep, which again, she didn’t just attack to take out Cersei, instead of destroying the entire city. Instead, the show has now given the rest of the characters all the validation they needed to turn on her, making her downright evil and unworthy of being a ruler without the one redeeming quality a woman seemingly needs to still inspire some level of loyalty or shred of hope: being a mother, which brings us to Cersei. As portrayed by the extraordinary Headey, Cersei has always been one of the most complicated, complex and ruthlessly strategic characters on the show, willing to do whatever it takes to stay in power. This is a woman who literally blew up the Great Sept of Baelor, much to her delight as almost every member of House Tyrell died (Justice for Olenna and Margaery) along with many civilians.  If Dany is the Mother of Dragons, Cersei is the Mother of Monsters, well at least one, as she’s directly responsible for the human atrocity that was King Joffrey (Gone too late). She’s also threatened to kill basically everyone on the show—including her younger brother Tyrion, who has somehow become her greatest champion and defender?!—and Cersei is not a woman in the business of making idle threats. And yet throughout the final season, the common refrain has been Cersei still can be redeemed and/or trusted because she’s pregnant, and if there’s one thing to know about Cersei it’s that she loves her children.  Quick recap: All three of Cersei’s children are dead because of her: 1. Joffrey just sucked and she did nothing to tame him. 2. Her daughter Myrcella was murdered as an act of revenge against Cersei. 3. Tommen poor, sweet Tommen, committed suicide after her saw what his mother had done to the Sept.  Still, the show has replaced all of Cersei’s defining characteristics—ruthless convictions and cunning gameplay—with the fact that she’s a mother. They didn’t help matters by keeping her framed in a tower window all season, flanked by characters straight out of a late-in-the-episode Saturday Night Live sketch: a mute monster (The Mountain), a mad scientist (Qyburn) and the steampunk pirate paramour whose name must not be mentioned. When you look back, Cersei really didn’t do anything all season; making her a passive bystander in her own life. If “The Bells” taught us anything it’s just women are just too emotional to rule, even if they are making moves—controversial as they may be—that men in this cutthroat world have made for thousands of years.  Add in the fan outrage over Ser Brienne of Tarth being reduced to crying in a bathrobe after Jaime leaves her just after she was finally (and deservedly) knighted (not to mention that her final solo scene of the series was documenting Jaime’s merits!) and Missandei, the one woman of color on the show, ultimately serving as a device to move the plot forward, and it’s not surprising that many viewers feel that the female representation on the show is lacking.  But the biggest issue came in episode two, when Sansa’s rape, which caused possibly the show’s biggest controversy when it aired in 2015, was brought up again during her reunion with the Hound.  Jessica Chastain, Turner’s Dark Phoenix co-star, took to Twitter after the episode aired to slam the scene which Sansa inferred the horrors she has endured over the course of the series, including the Ramsay Bolton assault, had turned her into a stronger person.  “Rape is not a tool to make a character stronger. A woman doesn’t need to be victimized in order to become a butterfly,” Chastain tweeted. “The #littlebird was always a Phoenix. Her prevailing strength is solely because of her. And her alone.” Chastain was far from the only person to call out the show for this exchange, with fans and critics alike blasting the scene.  After the rape scene aired in season five, Weiss and Benioff defended their decision to include it in the show in an interview with Time.  “It’s still the same basic power dynamic between men and women in this medieval world,” Benioff said. “This is what we believed was going to happen.” It is a medieval world, but it’s also the biggest TV show in the world airing in 2019; you should know better. The criticism of the way the female characters storylines are playing out on screen could very well be because of the lack of female voices behind the scenes. Benioff and Weiss have written a majority of the series’ episodes, with the list of directors is equally as small and mostly male.  Just over five percent of GOT‘s 73 episodes were female-directed, and it was the same director, Breaking Bad‘s Michelle MacLaren, who directed two episodes in seasons three and four. Similarly, just a few women have written on the show, with celebrated writer Jane Espenson (Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Once Upon a Time and Battlestar Galactica, to name a few) receiving a sole teleplay credit for a season one episode, and said in 2011 that she “loved loved loved” her experience working on the show She added she would do another episode “in an instant” if asked to return. For its final season, Weiss and Benioff’s assistant Gursimran Sandhu was promoted to staff writer, while Vanessa Taylor was the show’s sole female producer when she worked on the show in 2012-13, also writing a few episodes during that time. Maybe if Espenson or Taylor came back around they could’ve noted it’s not a good look to say that the two powerful women who actually want the Iron Throne are just too damn emotionally unstable to rule, and that a white man who didn’t want power truly deserved to be king, with another white dude who didn’t want the position ultimately becoming king in the end.  In an e-mail interview ahead of the series finale, Benioff and Weiss, who directed the series finale, admitted they avoid social media. “It’s gratifying to have people care enough about what you’re doing to feel like they need to comment on it in real time,” Weiss and Benioff, who are set to head over to the Star Wars franchise, told Rolling Stone. “Social media has been central to the way the show has been watched by many people. That said, we don’t engage with it all that much, mainly because of the time and energy required to do so. The show itself is a full-time job and then some. We’ll make the best show we know how to make, and we’ll hope that people like it. Knowing full well they won’t be shy about it if they don’t.” No, no they were not. But sometimes it’s worth it to read your feed.  Don’t miss E! News every weeknight at 7, only on E! https://www.eonline.com/news/1042391/why-game-of-thrones-final-season-was-always-destined-to-disappoint?cmpid=rss-000000-rssfeed-365-topstories&utm_source=eonline&utm_medium=rssfeeds&utm_campaign=rss_topstories The post Why Game of Thrones’ Final Season Was Always Destined to Disappoint appeared first on Top Of The World. https://kartiavelino.com/why-game-of-thrones-final-season-was-always-destined-to-disappoint/