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Game of Thrones (S8)

I enjoyed it. I thought it nicely tied things up. It was a it of a feel good but for the characters you kind of wanted to end up with a happy ending.

Gonna miss that theme tune.
 
A lot of the characters ended up in satisfying new beginnings: Sansa, Arya, Tyrion, Brienne, Pod, Jon/Ghost(!!!), Tormund, Samwell.

If I scrutinize how they got there too closely I get a bit mad, but as far as epilogues go, this was alright.
 
The guy arrested and still shackled for treason is surely the ideal person to appoint and brand the new king.
 
Among people who really didn't like the finale there seems to be an inordinate amount of people who seemed really invested in who "won" the Throne. I get why, the show's called Game of Thrones and bookies took bets on it and everything but that seems like such a weird thing to be interested in when, and maybe someone else can correct me here, it seems like Bran is king in name only and he's going to spend his day being a weird Bird-Tree Man and let his counsel of smart and good folk run the country. It seems pretty likely that, in this world, there's probably going to be something akin to a Magna Carta or House of Lords or even full-scale Parliament with Bran as a figurehead.

Either way, all of the "How come Bran gets to be King and not Jon/Arya/Whoever" stuff feels like watching the Mad Men finale because you're really invested in who ends up with the nicest office.
 
Nik the Trik said:
Among people who really didn't like the finale there seems to be an inordinate amount of people who seemed really invested in who "won" the Throne. I get why, the show's called Game of Thrones and bookies took bets on it and everything but that seems like such a weird thing to be interested in when, and maybe someone else can correct me here, it seems like Bran is king in name only and he's going to spend his day being a weird Bird-Tree Man and let his counsel of smart and good folk run the country. It seems pretty likely that, in this world, there's probably going to be something akin to a Magna Carta or House of Lords or even full-scale Parliament with Bran as a figurehead.
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Hey, dude went from nobody sell-sword to Lord of the richest land in the kingdom. He is to smarts what Podrick was to smoochin'
 
I was rooting for the ending where they didn't end up having a single king/queen but instead basically granting each kingdom their independence like they did with the North (sidenote: why didn't anyone else even try to ask for that?). Yeah, maybe that would have caused problems in the future but I mean it's not like the show would care. I just felt like that would have been the best representation of "breaking the wheel".
 
CarltonTheBear said:
I was rooting for the ending where they didn't end up having a single king/queen but instead basically granting each kingdom their independence like they did with the North (sidenote: why didn't anyone else even try to ask for that?).
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Leaving aside the larger question of whether that would have been good for anyone(which would probably lead me to start talking about Brexit), most of the people in charge of those Kingdoms are either Bran's relatives(Tobias Menzies, the weird breastfeeding kid), new rulers without much credibility in their new Kingdoms(Bronn, Gendry) or Tyrion.
 
Nik the Trik said:
Leaving aside the larger question of whether that would have been good for anyone(which would probably lead me to start talking about Brexit), most of the people in charge of those Kingdoms are either Bran's relatives(Tobias Menzies, the weird breastfeeding kid), new rulers without much credibility in their new Kingdoms(Bronn, Gendry) or Tyrion.
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Fair enough. The two kingdoms I was initially thinking about aside from the North were the Iron Islands and Dorne, both of which seem separate enough from Westeros already that they could be fine independently. And I mean Yara had a deal with Dany for their independence which she weirdly never brought up again.

I was mostly just a little surprised they even named a new king, especially after Drogon went through the trouble of destroying the iron throne because of all the terrible things it symbolized. Sure, Bran's a weirdo who doesn't care about power (or anything) but good luck finding someone like him when he needs to be replaced.
 
CarltonTheBear said:
Nik the Trik said:
Leaving aside the larger question of whether that would have been good for anyone(which would probably lead me to start talking about Brexit), most of the people in charge of those Kingdoms are either Bran's relatives(Tobias Menzies, the weird breastfeeding kid), new rulers without much credibility in their new Kingdoms(Bronn, Gendry) or Tyrion.
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Fair enough. The two kingdoms I was initially thinking about aside from the North were the Iron Islands and Dorne, both of which seem separate enough from Westeros already that they could be fine independently. And I mean Yara had a deal with Dany for their independence which she weirdly never brought up again.

I was mostly just a little surprised they even named a new king, especially after Drogon went through the trouble of destroying the iron throne because of all the terrible things it symbolized. Sure, Bran's a weirdo who doesn't care about power (or anything) but good luck finding someone like him when he needs to be replaced.
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He seems to me to be more of a head of state than anything.
 
Bender said:
He seems to me to be more of a head of state than anything.
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Yeah, and Nik brought that up too, and I'm good with the idea of a council actually ruling things but if that's the case I just wish they made it more clear. Don't name him "king", call him something else. I guess this is just nitpicky at this point.
 
CarltonTheBear said:
Fair enough. The two kingdoms I was initially thinking about aside from the North were the Iron Islands and Dorne, both of which seem separate enough from Westeros already that they could be fine independently. And I mean Yara had a deal with Dany for their independence which she weirdly never brought up again.
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Yeah, but remember that Yara's deal with Danerys was that the Iron Islands had to give up the raiding and pillaging of the coasts that apparently their whole culture was based on(and which, if they continued would probably lead to their being invaded/subjugated again). Even post-Danerys, maybe Yara is smart enough to realize that if they're going to transition economically from a pillage based system to any sort of sustainable model it makes more sense to be part of a larger geopolitical block.

CarltonTheBear said:
I was mostly just a little surprised they even named a new king, especially after Drogon went through the trouble of destroying the iron throne because of all the terrible things it symbolized. Sure, Bran's a weirdo who doesn't care about power (or anything) but good luck finding someone like him when he needs to be replaced.
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But that's why I think the next logical step from a figurehead monarch is the actual establishment of rule by committee on the way to a proper constitutional monarchy. To that extent in someways the assassination of Danerys can be seen somewhat along the lines of the execution of Charles I/the end result of the English Civil War with Tyrion as a de facto Cromwell. Sure, the Monarchy was eventually restored but it was a lot closer to the current monarchy than the absolute rule of years past.

Tyrion and Varys were both essentially early Enlightenment thinkers near the end. Philosophically, we've sort of seen the transition from Machiavelli and Hobbes to Locke and Rousseau.
 
Good points. Maybe part of the problem, like with the entire season, was that there just wasn't enough time to unravel all these points.
 
I started Season One of GoT and when I saw Peter Dinklage getting blown I'm like "what is this smut?".
 
CarltonTheBear said:
Good points. Maybe part of the problem, like with the entire season, was that there just wasn't enough time to unravel all these points.
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I think that's the biggest thing for me.

Dany could have been helped out by getting an episode or two more to slow burn her rage.  Varys could have been more subtle than screaming "Anyone but Dany" in a 15 minute montage to getting burned. 

Bran could have done something during the season to justify why he should be anything more than a robot king.  I actually understand why he would decline Winterfell but accept being King because that's what he could see as the 3-eyed-raven but it also doesn't make a lot of sense for why they should want him to be in that role.
 
Any ASoIaF book readers here?

I was introduced to a similar series a few years ago during the wait between Martin publishing stuff.
If you're into similar Medieval POV 'realistic' fantasy world building involving a bastard child developing psychic bonds with animals playing an integral role in feudal politics and (eventually) dragons, give the Farseer Trilogy by Robin Hobb (and subsequent trilogies) a gander.
 
herman said:
Any ASoIaF book readers here?

I was introduced to a similar series a few years ago during the wait between Martin publishing stuff.
If you're into similar Medieval POV 'realistic' fantasy world building involving a bastard child developing psychic bonds with animals playing an integral role in feudal politics and (eventually) dragons, give the Farseer Trilogy by Robin Hobb (and subsequent trilogies) a gander.
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I am, started ASoIaF way back in 2005 long before the TV show became a reality, can't believe I'm still waiting for the books to finish.  :-/

I really enjoy stuff by Brent Weeks too, the Shadow trilogy is complete, and the Lightbringer series is 5 books, with the 5th and final book coming out this fall.
 
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