Dany finally has the throne after destroying King's Landing, but Tyrion and Jon are starting to realize how dangerous and unstable she's become.
Tyrion, Jon, and Davos traipse through the ruin that was King's Landing, observing the destruction and roasted people, some still alive.
Though Jon advises against it, Tyrion decides to go on alone, drifting past the city's broken bell toward the charred Red Keep. Jon finds Grey Worm preparing to execute Lannister soldiers, and despite his and Davos's complaints, GW coldly states the soldiers are enemies of Daenerys, who ordered him to kill everyone who followed Cersei. Jon's men and the Unsullied raise their blades at one other when Jon physically stops GW. Davos convinces Jon to talk to Dany, and GW executes the men as they leave. At the ruined Red Keep, Tyrion makes his way down to the dungeon. He digs through the rubble and spots Jaime's golden hand inside, then tearfully uncovers his siblings. Wandering up to the courtyard, Arya watches Jon proceed to the massive steps of the Red Keep, where an enormous Targaryen banner hangs. Grey Worm is somehow there as Jon makes it up the steps, and everyone begins cheering as Drogon flies in, and Daenerys steps forward. She commends her Dothraki for fulfilling Drogo's promise to her, and after praising Grey Worm, names him commander of her forces and her Master of War. Declaring her Unsullied liberators, Dany says they'll next be liberating the whole world, and asks her soldiers to "break the wheel" with her. Tyrion steps forward as the men cheer, and she accuses him of committing treason by freeing Jaime. He admits to having done so, but retorts that she slaughtered a city, then removes and tosses aside his hand pin. The cheering stops, and Dany has her men take Tyrion away. He shoots a dark expression at Jon, who watches the angry Daenerys follow her men. To his surprise, Arya appears next to him, explaining why she's there. Reminding him Sansa won't bow to Dany, Arya calls the queen a killer and knows he's a threat.
Jon later visits the imprisoned Tyrion, and the latter makes morbid jokes about how Varys's ghost can tells his "I told you so," as Dany doesn't keep prisoners long.
He asks Jon about death, and the latter admits his experience held no afterlife, and Tyrion shrugs that a void will be okay. He lists his atrocities, like strangling Shae and killing Tywin, and adamantly says he betrayed Dany and would again. Unable to make excuses for his queen's actions, Jon simply says the war is over, but Tyrion brings up how heated Dany was speaking to the soldiers. Saying Dany "liberated" King's Landing like she did Slaver's Bay, he admits to having served her willingly until now, and says Varys was right; Dany's nature is fire and blood. Jon finds this ridiculous, claiming he'd be the same since he's from that family, and she's not her father any more than Tyrion is Tywin. Tyrion retorts that Dany has still killed more in a day than his evil father or sister ever did. Jon claims she had no choice and saw her friend and dragon killed; Tyrion counters she won when the gates fell, and burned a city for her friend and dragon. Jon thinks he's being judgmental, so Tyrion asks if he would've done the same, since he's had a dragon's power before. Jon claims he doesn't know, but Tyrion says he does, but doesn't want to betray Dany. Tyrion recounts how Dany killed the Astapoor slavers, Mereneese nobles, and Dothraki leaders and no one complained because these men were evil. As a result of being praised for this, she has continued to grow and believe she's right. He believes she's willing to kill anyone who stands in the way of her paradise, and admits that while he loved and believed in her, love is more powerful than reason. Jon recites Maester Aemon's words about love being the death of duty, and Tyrion, impressed, says duty can also be the death of love. Saying Jon has always been a shield who tried to do what was right to protect people, Tyrion asks who the greatest threat to the people is now. Though he knows he's asking a lot, Tyrion says he won't be the last person she'll execute, as there's no one more dangerous than the rightful heir to the throne. Composing himself, Jon says it's her decision as queen, and apologizes that things came to this. As he leaves, Tyrion brings up Jon's sisters, and when the latter says they don't get a choice in who is queen, Tyrion says that he does, and has to do so now.
Jon passes an ash-covered Drogon to get to the throne room, where Dany is in silent joy about finally having the throne room.
When Jon enters, she says how Viserys told her stories about the enormous throne, but he interjects to talk about Grey Worm executing prisoners on her orders. She says it's necessary, and when he screams that innocents were burned and brings up Tyrion, she says Cersei thought the people would be her weakness, and Tyrion conspired against her. Dany brings up that he's dealt with traitors before, and claims she can't forgive Tyrion and the people, because they can't hide behind small mercies. He says their world has to be about mercy, and she counters that it will be; he just doesn't know what it'll look like because he's never seen such a thing before. She claims he, like her, knows it'll be right because they both know what's good, and the other people of the world who think they know what's right won't get a choice. He stands silently, and she asks him to build the better world they've dreamed of since childhood. He sadly declares she'll always be his queen, and during a kiss, stabs her. As the tearful Jon cradles Dany's corpse, Drogon flies into the room. Jon steps aside, and Drogon sadly nudges his mother's body. Enraged, Drogon lets our a ferocious roar, and though he seems about to burn Jon, he suddenly turns his head and attacks the iron throne instead, melting the Valyrian steel swords that comprise it. Drogon then carefully picks up his mother's body, and flies away from the throne room with Jon standing stunned. Daenerys might be gone, but now the lords of Westeros must find themselves a new monarch, and decide how to deal with the man who killed their queen.
I was glad to find this episode didn't bother me quite as much as the previous one, but of course it would be pretty hard to do that.
There were definitely good aspects to this episode, though they were sprinkled in what was still a very disappointing finale. I was glad early on to see on stand up to Grey Worm when it came to the Lannister soldiers, trying to be honorable, though GW continued anyway. The discordance between Jon and Dany's men was exactly the kind of thing Sansa had worried about back when the Night King was an issue, as she knew there was no way the peace would easily be maintained. And I remember last season people made jokes about how the characters went around the map fast, but how about Grey Worm, folks? While GW deals with the soldiers, Jon goes to speak to Dany, and somehow by the time he gets to the Red Keep, GW is standing at the top of the stairs. Now this scene does doa good job showing that Dany is completely bonkers, as she tells her men they've "liberated" the town and will liberate the world next. Though I still think Dany's turn to madness was too sudden, this felt like a moment that did remind me of Aerys's desire to burn everything and rise from the ashes. One of the best moments in this scenes is actually unrelated to her speech: the moment when she first steps out and Drogon's wings appear to be hers. Despite all the poor writing this season, the actors have given great performances, and the cinematography is often excellent. This is one of the best shots, showing how Dany is stepping more into her title of "dragon queen," sort of losing her humanity to achieve victory. There is other great imagery throughout the episode, light the darkly lit room where Jon speaks with Tyrion, or numerous shots from the throne room scene. Back to the story, though, Tyrion has one of my favorite moments of the episode after Dany's speech, with his stiff defiance following her slaughter of the city. He later has good arguments with Jon, but I found myself rolling my eyes because Jon seemed to be trying to convince him of what the writers have forgotten: the characters are not their parents. Much like Jaime randomly turning around on his development, Tyrion sees himself seemingly as evil because of what he did to Tywin and Shae, and betraying Dany. I don't understand why characters, especially Daenerys, spent so long fighting to prove themselves different from their families, only to end up at least thinking they're exactly the same. I was also disappointed with how Jon continued trying to support Dany despite obviously realizing she's in the wrong. Like Tyrion says, he has long fought for the people and tried to defend them, but now he's decided that he loves Dany and won't betray her. Back when he was with Ygritte, who I thought was a better match for him, he was willing to toss away their love because he wanted to save his Night's Watch brothers. Now all of a sudden, he's too blinded by his love for Dany, who has constantly acted poorly this season, made foolish decisions, and now massacred a city. I was therefore glad in a way when Jon killed Dany, though I later realized he didn't have to, and another killer could've avoided becoming a captive. Obviously after killing Dany, her supporters aren't too happy with Jon, but what if the killer had been someone unknown who couldn't be found after? For whatever reason, the characters seem to think Jon is the only one who could kill Dany, but I'd say Arya would've been a great choice. Up to this point, we've only use her face changing ability since leaving the Faceless Men once, and it would've been a perfect ability for this case. She could've easily hid as some unknown person and gotten close enough to kill Dany, then after getting away for a moment or faking the person's death, removed the face. The people of course would still be angry, but there would be no one to direct their rage to, and in a way could've proven the point that Dany was a tyrant to her deluded followers by having a normal person be the killer. I did like that Drogon destroyed the iron throne, and don't really understand why this is the moment getting the meme treatment online. Sure, it's an easy joke to say Drogon saw the knife and thought "Pointy? Chair also pointy. Chair killed mom!" but it's obviously not the case. It's been established that dragons are incredibly intelligent creatures, and Dany's dragons have been around for most of her journey, and likely heard her desires. For an intelligent creature like Drogon, I immediately figured he understood his mother's obsession had led her to this moment. Now that I'm past the previous episode, I also want to say I was disappointed with Jaime and Cersei's deaths, especially since Jaime was following reverse development. It was certainly poetic that everything Cersei wanted crumbled around her, but it still felt silly that they tried to make us feel bad for her, and it made me sense with Jaime's progression to have him kill her. Euron's death didn't really mean anything to me, other than the fact we wouldn't have to deal with him anymore, since he was a character I disliked just because he was annoying, rather than a good villain. With this episode, there are some nice moments later, and I like how some of the characters ended up, though the newly chosen monarch is a bit of an odd choice. There are some funny moments when the characters decide on a new monarch, like Sam getting shut down after suggesting democracy. At the same time that the lords and ladies laugh at the thought of the people being involved in the choice, they are now choosing their leader themselves, which is a nice step forward. My favorite moment in this section is when Edmure Tully steps tries to sugggest himself as king, because it seemed silly to me; at first I thought he was just saying he had learned important things in his time and had a good choice. Sansa soon shuts him down, a moment I loved from her, and the others seem to be hiding laughter as he sits in embarrassment. Despite the good moments of this episode, overall it was still disappointing both as a solo episode and as a finale. I remember the excitement I felt as season 8 was being filmed and then came out, and it just sucks that it was such a disappointment. This is especially because, as George R.R. Martin said in this interview, there was enough material that the writers could've kept the show going, and there's no reason to think HBO would want to lose a show that brings in so much cash. It feels like the series and the fans suffered from the decision not to keep the show going, and it's such a pity we couldn't have a more coherent story. Time really was the big issue with this season, as it felt like the writers were trying to rush everything to an end, regardless of if it made sense. Daenerys going mad could've made sense, especially because, like others said, there have been signs that she was going to. The problem is, they had it happen with very little progression, so it doesn't feel like they earned the ending they gave us. Regardless, I'm glad we got the seasons we did, and know I'll still go back and watch the show again at some point, and there's the books. I'm still on the first one, but I'm loving how the story is told, and it's interesting seeing any changes. For such a great show, this episode and the entire season were colossal letdowns, and I really just wish more time had been taken with the writing and the characters.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorI love the entertainment side of things. Video games, tv shows, superheroes and movies are my passion and I'd love to get the news out for things I enjoy. My contact page has links to my social media, so if you enjoy what I have to say, likes, shares, comments, and follows are always greatly appreciated! Archives
April 2020
Categories
All
|