**SPOILER THREAD** GAME OF THRONES ** SPOILER THREAD **

[Chisoxfn]

I've been swamped at work the last few days, but even after further discussion, reading and reflection, this season was a bummer. There were moments here or there that were awesome, the ending is where we basically wanted to be, but how we got there and what they had to do to change the characters to fit those end points was pretty much unforgivable.

 

1) Tyrion. I'm fine with him "losing" to Cersei/Jaime when it comes to battle strategy. That makes sense, he's not a soldier. So whatever, first misstep of taking Casterly Rock and letting Highgarden left unguarded is a reasonable mistake. But all this nonsense about bringing a wight to Cersei, and then TRUSTING that Cersei would abide be her word, is against everything we've ever been told about Tyrion. He's an amazing statesman, a great judge of people/character, and a man who knows his history. NOTHING about his knowledge of Cersei would have let him believe that she would honor that deal. Pretty much exactly what I said 3 weeks ago about this stupid plan - that she would just leave Jon and Dany to fight the Night King while she sits back and watches her enemies die and/or become weaker - came true. It's inconceivable that Tyrion wouldn't see through that or at the very least know that there is a STRONG likelihood that she won't honor the deal. The pregnancy revelation, to me, doesn't change that equation.

 

Now, to be fair, we don't quite know the end game here. Is Tyrion pulling a double cross somehow? Is he not trusting Cersei but playing along with her false promise for another reason? I guess we'll see.

 

2) Arya/Sansa - I mean, that's the worst part of the season. The fact that the writers believed that the audience would buy that there would be a rift between these two is downright offensive. They essentially asked us to believe that Arya and Sansa (and the audience) would disregard the prior 6 seasons and the experience they went through to get where they are now. We're supposed to throw all that out the window and believe that they're little kids again, bickering about kid s***. And unfortunately this wasn't a huge ruse to trick Littlefinger into believing that his comments to Sansa may actually work. No, Arya and Sansa really did have a rift. Sansa really did consider killing Arya. According to the actor that played Bran, there was a deleted scene involving Sansa finally realizing she could talk to Bran and see what was true/what was not, and that was what prevented her from going after Arya.

 

3) Littlefinger - obviously the death was what everyone wanted, but it was a season or two late, it had little emotional impact and it again reversed everything we learned about a character from the prior 6 seasons and even the advice Littlefinger was giving Sansa just last week - always keep your options open and make sure you know your enemy's plays before they do. And yet we're supposed to believe that he honestly though he could divide the Stark house after Bran and Arya returned? After his altercation with Jon? Please. His death should have been immediately after the battle of the bastards. Sansa should have called up what's his face from the Vale, explained what happened with his mom and had LF killed off RIGHT after he saved Sansa/Jon. At least then it would have been believable that LF didn't give himself an out. In the scenario that played out this season, LF should have left Winterfell for the protection of the Vale on at least two or three different occasions but he didn't because, what, love? Meh.

 

Now I could be misremembering this a little from the book, but I'm pretty sure they depicted the stuff between Sansa and the boy in the Vale in the show, i.e., that he loved her. So the knights of the Vale would have been loyal to Sansa, especially since LF was threatening the lords of the Vale.

 

4) Jaime - nothing they did was really terrible with him this season, but I think his decision to finally leave Cersei due to her lack of honor is a bit weak. He didn't leave her after she destroyed the sept, he didn't leave her after she pressed on with this unwinnable war vs dragons, but now that she didn't honor her pledge to fight the dead with Dany and Jon, that's the final straw? I mean, I buy it, but it's not the best way to get Jamie to the "good guys" side. And I feel like the show has flip flopped on Jaime being a good guy/bad guy so much anyway, who knows what we're supposed to think.

On the first point, maybe Tyrion knew that all along but thought by going through this process, he could at least get Cersei to not attach while they are dealing with the north while also poaching Jamie, who was the leader of her armies and presumably has some clout (so I would think the potential to actually have people loyal to Jamie switch allegiences could be possible). Obviously we have to see what happens to Jamie, but it seems clear that he intends to help in the battle with the witewalkers (and he seemed to indicate his intent was to lead the armies north...Cersei certainly will have some say in that dyanmic).

[bmags]

Unless the snow in the throne room was a reference to Jon Snow

 

 

 

I think Tyrion offered to make Cersei's unborn child Dany's heir to the Iron Throne in return for the truce should see become victorious. So when he saw Jon/Dany get it on, he realized his plan could become in jeopardy if Dany were to become pregnant. I don't know if he is aware of Miri Maz Dur's prophecy or not

 

I like this. Good stuff.