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[Kot]

He's obviously looking at an elephant.

[Digital Hellhound]

Well, that was spectacular, at the least. I kinda enjoyed this episode, honestly. Generally it was stupid or really stupid, but a lot of it was fun to watch. It might help that I have no attachment or expectation to 90% of characters or plots.

[NRDL]

It might help that I have no attachment or expectation to 90% of characters or plots.

Amen to that. No sense ruining the fun for myself by having lofty expectations.

In terms of directing, acting, practical and computer generated effects, and all the things that go into the execution of the episode, it was fantastic. The decisions made by the characters had me on the edge of my seat. And the

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several deaths, especially of Varys, Jaime and Cersei

really moved me.

[McTraveller]

It sort of felt pandering to me.  I mean - some of the "cinematography" at the end was basically "please make stills of this be your desktop wallpaper."

Also,

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"Yeah, we'll end these characters, but not in a satisfying way."  At least, I found most of them to be kind of meh.  Realistic - I mean it's much more likely to be killed by falling rubble than by one of the heroes.  But it's really kind of anti-climactic.

Aside:  What was with all the occasional wildfire explosions?

[NRDL]

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There must have been plenty of caches of wildfire in the city. Thematically, it's to tie Daenerys to her father. "Burn them all."

[McTraveller]

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There must have been plenty of caches of wildfire in the city. Thematically, it's to tie Daenerys to her father. "Burn them all."

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 I couldn't tell if it was just world-completeness as you suggested, or if it was somehow along the lines of "see I knew there were traps all over the place, nobody is innocent yaarrrrr."

[MorleyDev]

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Personally, the deaths all season have felt like a checklist of 'characters who finished their plot arcs' than actual consequences of actions. It's telling that the reason they had Arya kill the Nights King is solely because they wanted a twist, which is a terrible reason and makes a show that used to be built around consequences for mistakes and twists that served a thematic purpose into basically the M. Night Shamalon of TV Series.

Robb and Ned died because they made mistakes, they put honour and love over duty, responsibilities, and practicality, and they paid the ultimaye price for it. They died with work undone and roads still unwalked, because they made mistakes. That's what made the deaths shocking and tragic in the first place: because they had a thematic purpose and worked completely logically within the plot and the characters.

But now? Varys has been completely pointless he smuggled Tyrion away, especially since they decided to completely drop the whole Aegon-maybe-a-blackfire plotline, leaving all of his scheming hanging on nothing more than 'We need a targaryen ruler because of reasons' and with nothing for him to do with all his cards firmly on the table.

Jamie and Cersei dying together has been foreshadowed heavily in the book, but really he should have been the one to kill her at the end and again, with her gone what's left for him in the narrative? Hound v Mountain kinda pissed away all of his character development and the idea he could put away his hate and care for something like Arya, but again if you go the 'destined to kill his brother and always be consumed by vengeance' approach there's nothing left for him to do in the plot anyway.

Dany has just jumped straight of the deep end and it feels so very forced and sudden. She's always been burny, but she used to at least know how to direct the burning. She kinda went from "Break the wheel and free the masses" to "BURN THEM ALL" very quickly.  She never really had an event that could break her into going against the civilian population so drastically. Her anger really still should be directed at the ones on top.

They needed more time maybe, but I guess that's a constraint of a TV series with actors who want to do more than the same role for 20 years. People try and justify it with 'Targaryens gonna Tar', but it's been stated that the Mad King deteriorated over years into what he became. There's such a lack of consistency between Seasons 1-4 and Seasons 5 onwards in tone, theme and execution, that it just wrecks my suspension of disbelief beyond repair.

Honestly, I feel the same about GoT now that I did about Star Wars 7 and 8. Detached indifference to what I'm seeing, which turns into anger at the pissed away potential. Suspension of disbelief is well and truly broken, and that just leaves disbelief that the series hasn't been suspended yet.

[NRDL]

Good comparison with Star Wars. I appreciate it cause it makes me realise that I really am the glass half full, "easily impressed by spectacle" sort of viewer. I'll always be the first to admit that there's lots of flaws. But I'll always end up loving it anyway.

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In a way, that's ultimately how Jaime saw Cersei.

[MorleyDev]

I'll be the first to admit I'm one of those viewers who when I lose suspension of disbelief and start really analyzing things, it needs to be really good and hold up to analysis before I can get back into that mindset of rolling with it. My favourite stories are usually ones I can go on at least a short rant about the themes, significance, ideas, subtlety, metaphysics, and/or symbolism of.

ASoIaF is one of those series, at least so far. GoT? The only parts where that's true are the parts that take more or less directly from ASoIaF.

And I think worse than never having that in a story, is to lose it. Rather they never had it in the first place.

[NRDL]

Something tells me the effect you're describing would be more pronounced ( for myself ) if I were to binge watch every season of GoT in a row and notice the drop in writing quality on a day to day basis.

It's a good thing I don't have the time to do that 

[sluissa]

I've already said I was done with the show if it wasn't almost over, but that episode just killed the show for me. It was just such a pretentious pile of overdirected, underwritten shit that I've seen from the show thus far. I want to just not watch the end, but I'm sure I'll be pressured to finish it out by the group I'm watching it with.  One more episode, I guess...

God that was shit.

[Enemy post]

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I like Drogon. I hope he survives.

Arya too I guess.

[Mephansteras]

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Well, they've finally done it. They've finally moved me into the "I just can't care any more" camp.

I've recognized the issues ever since they got past the books, but until now I've been able to just enjoy the GoT fan fiction we were being shown. It's been fun and well executed (cinematically, at leaset).

But this episode just left me feeling profoundly dissappointed. Mostly for the same reasons everyone else has listed earlier.

Though in my case, the Star Wars comparison would be for Anakin doing the 'I joined the Dark Side, time to kill all the little kids!' nonsense. I get "Dany's a Targaryen and they can go crazy"  but this really seemed to skip all the signs of a slide into madness and looked more like someone tripping on a pebble and falling off a cliff rather than even a rapid slide towards madness.

Seriously. "All my enemies are surrendering and the city is mine. NOOOOO I MUST BURN IT ALL FOR NO REASON!!!". It's just so far beyond even their normal breaking of character that I can't even just watch and enjoy.

It's a sad, tired mix of cliches that don't even add up to a fun mindless romp. And as my wife points out, it really smacks of the old sexist "Women are actually all crazy people, so clearly we need a man to be in charge to keep things sane" argument the people used for a long time to justify never voting women into office.

[Arx]

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And as my wife points out, it really smacks of the old sexist "Women are actually all crazy people, so clearly we need a man to be in charge to keep things sane" argument the people used for a long time to justify never voting women into office.

It's historically accurate!

[ChairmanPoo]

Well tbh she was a bit crazy all along (and so was the rest of her family. I mean? Her father was  and her younger brother was). Its just that the show did the development lousily. I'd not be surprised if ASoIaF Daenerys ends up crazy too. Possibly not killed by her niece tho