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renlyisright · 4 years

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Season 7 Episode 7 - Hey, We Won at Scheming, Who Would Have Guessed

Welp, I finished the master’s thesis before I finished the show. I can’t exactly say that I have grown up with these characters because most of them have stopped growing up for death-related reasons. Well, there’s the Stark kids who are still alive, and their careers are all on up-swing.

In this final episode of the season, we visit the ruins of the dragon pit, and they make me wonder just how large it must have been when the dragons were still super large.

The truce meeting is about to start, but Daenerys has brought her army to stand near King’s Landing, just in case. Both the Unsullied and the Dothraki. Euron’s massive fleet is protecting the Blackwater, against Daenerys’ fleet of… five ships.

The negotiators are allowed entrance, and are brought to the third hill of King’s Landing, and the one tourist attraction we haven’t seen yet, the Dragon Pit. Which is a big place, but sadly a ruin. Being a large pile of already-cut stone right in the city with no current use never helps any historical building, those stones can be put to a much better use.

As this meeting includes almost everyone of any importance, and also some sidekicks, there’s more reunions. Tyrion says that he missed Bronn. Bronn seems to have his business in order, bringing Cersei’s enemies to her and thinking of retiring with his reward if the negotiation ends with heads on spikes. But if Daenerys wins in the end...

Everyone arrives to the arena, and the Hound begins the game by threatening the Mountain. There’s clearly a duel being set up between these two death-cheaters, but as at any time either of them can be killed by, well, anything, I’m not holding my breath for a super smackdown between them.

Daenerys arrives fashionably late, and brings her two dragons to the dragon pit, and… how big exactly this place must have been in the beginning? Drogon’s wings almost cover the middle of the arena by themselves.

As Daenerys, Jon and Tyrion predicted, their enemies just laugh about the matter before seeing the evidence. After that, they present a bit of theater, as Cersei later reveals. Euron proclaims that he’s moving his fleet to the Iron Islands, away from the Dead, and Cersei gives a practised speech of accepting the truce.

So did they have intel of the evidence, or did Cersei make plans for the low-odds-event that the thing she has ridiculed every time it has come up is actually true. If so, that’s remarkably good planning, from her.

The showing of the evidence was quite a show, Jon used the one wight they had in great detail for everyone to see. Qyburn was especially interested… well, he has practised getting one almost dead man up and running, so searching this body for any clues for advancing the scientific understanding of life and death must intrigue him… Let’s hope he doesn’t create a new White Walker in the middle of the Red Keep.

Cersei asks Jon to promise to go back to the North and stay there. Jon can’t promise that, so the negotiation ends, just like that. Tyrion and Daenerys say that Jon should have just lied and not been so Neddy. But just because others do something universally agreed to be bad, it doesn’t mean you should too. Anyway, Cersei walks out and Tyrion goes to speak to him alone, as he matters the least if he gets killed.

But he doesn’t, even after coaxing Cersei to kill him for what he did. Cersei is too shocked to give the word, and it could also be that she simply can’t give people what they ask from her, it’s completely unnatural to her. She blames Tyrion for killing Tywin, which opened them for their enemies and brought about the dead of the rest of the kids. The legacy of Tywin Lannister… you know, if the only thing keeping everyone from attacking your family is their fear of you, that does not a good legacy make. The legacy of Ned Stark was the North supporting first Robb and then Jon out of respect to him, the legacy of Tywin Lannister was everyone piling up on the Lannisters once he was out of the way.

The result of Cersei and Tyrion’s discussion is that Cersei proclaims to join them in the fight against the Dead, while expecting nothing good to come to herself for that decision. Yes, what did we speak about lying just now?

Speaking of Ned Stark’s legacy, Jon and Theon talk about it. Theon betrayed his memory, but, as Jon says, he was more of a father to Theon than Balon ever was. And so they can use that bond to reconcile, and Jon can encourage Theon to take charge and take the lead of Yara’s men.

Symbolism, Theon is starting to change his weaknesses into strengths. This is symbolised by allowing the Ironborn he is fighting to kick him to the nuts, to no effect. Yes, this is symbolism speaking.

The man says to Theon “Stay down, or I’ll kill you”. When Theon has the upper hand, he bashes his head in with a rock for that mercy. I would say that the Ironborn have a specifically violent way to solve disputes, but… nope. Not specifically, not at all. But Theon gets to be the leader of the pride, and gets to go against the Ramsay-placeholder enemy to confront his trauma. Someone should invent better therapy methods.

In Winterfell, the winter continues to fall from the sky. Littlefinger tries to chaos things up, but his time’s up. There’s no room for him anymore in this new magical and thriller-pace world.

I read A Dance With Dragons last winter, and while I liked most of it, like the writing style, the characters, seeing more of non-royals, and the new locales, the ending was a disappointment. Or rather, that there wasn’t an ending. There’s more books to go (and I hope to get to read them), but this one just… stopped when the page count went over 1000. It had the same problem as the fourth one, people spent a lot of time going from one place to another, so that when they arrived the book was almost over (or in Victarion’s case, it was over), and the end result was just a list of cliffhangers. Like, imagine ending A Clash of Kings just before Blackwater, or last season before the Battle of the Bastards. It felt like the arc of the book was incomplete, and I wasn’t given a reason to care about the new side plots, like which of them will actually matter and which just padded the book until it had to end early?

The funny thing of course is that this show has now the opposite problem of jumping from one set piece to another without build-up or showing of the journey. And when you can’t keep up with this new world, you lose the game of thrones.

Littlefinger schemes a wedge between Sansa and Arya. He doesn’t want a trained assassin in the same castle as he is, now that he has supported Sansa to ladyship and is perhaps looking for a way to make her a queen as well… that was his weakness, stick to just getting power and you’d have much easier job, but no, you have to include getting a specific woman into your plans and that’s when you make mistakes. But it doesn’t matter anymore what he schemes, as magic has entered Winterfell.

Bran can cheat. He can see the past, and apparently can see exactly where and when he wants. So he traced Littlefinger’s steps, and found out all his betrayals. Many of them Sansa already knew, so the rest mustn’t have come as a shock. So the Starks, who value honesty and honor, now can see if they are betrayed or lied to. Once Jon gets to Winterfell, Bran can tell him what Cersei said after they left. Political intrigue, a corner block and most of the wall of the show, has suddenly become useless. The Littlefingers of the world can’t scheme anymore against the Starks. They have Won At Scheming.

The dagger, the dagger, is revealed to be originally Petyr’s. As I said earlier, the only way the revelation could matter anymore would be if it was someone’s who is still living, or someone’s whom we’d never think to order Bran’s assassination. And here we are, it was the Chaos Man. I’m not sure if the dates add up, how did he know of Bran’s fall so that he could hire the assassin, when he was in King’s Landing at the time? Maybe he wasn’t? And why use his own expensive dagger and lie that it was Tyrion’s, when a simple Lannister knife would have worked much better?

In the book the answer was different. Tyrion figured out that it was Joffrey, who stole his father’s dagger and gave it to the assassin. He never confirmed it with anyone, and anyway Joffrey died moments later. I can fully well believe it from Joffrey. But it’s been so long since Joffrey died that at this point one more evil deed to his name wouldn’t mean much. So the culprit is now Littlefinger, and wow, listing all his schemes like that tells how without him the status quo would likely be just where it was in the beginning. He has a lot of blood on his hands. Daenerys and the Dead would still be wild cards, though.

And so the king of the ash heap, Petyr Baelish, dies in the dark main hall of Winterfell, in the middle of the mess he’s spent years to create, without achieving his goals, without any allies and with absolutely nobody going to miss him.

As I have said, for being such a dark and gritty show, the villains don’t get any better ends than those who try to do better, and their legacies are usually worse.

Speaking of both the villains and those who try to do better, Cersei informs Jaime that nope, we are not going anywhere, she used the neat trick called lying. Euron went to get mercenaries with elephants (ooh!) from Essos.

This is enough for Jaime, who storms away, after telling Cersei to have the Mountain kill him for it if she so desires. In the end, she doesn’t, even after threatening him with that. But after listening to her lie and cheat for years, Jaime just says “I don’t believe you” and leaves. See, consequences.

Poor Cersei, losing everyone’s trust and being entirely alone at the end of the episode. Only her massive armies to keep her on the throne. Which is a funny thing, now that I think about it. She has managed to antagonize everybody, but because she has killed everyone in King’s Landing who has criticized her, she gets to still rule, because there is no one else in the city to take the crown from her. She’s taking advantage of the fact that no new important characters are going to be introduced at this point. Euron was the last one, in the season 6 of 8, and even he feels like he exists only as a mid boss so Daenerys’ invasion isn’t too easy, to be killed once fleets don’t matter anymore.

Of course Cersei takes advantage of the fact that her enemies are scary. New Targaryen invasion, with the Dothraki and Unsullied. Nothing like the good old rulers we have here in Westeros, who may blow up the most holy building on the continent to escape a trial and kill the servants of the main religion, but are at least… from the same continent?

It’s still weird that the Seven is the main religion, when it has been the most useless one in actual action. Did they ever do anything? When the Old Gods were driven from the South, were the Seven doing anything to support their believers? Well, did the Old Gods? Does the Drowned God? Well, if Euron’s fleet’s speed is a boon from the Drowned God, that would explain a lot.

The winter comes to King’s Landing as well. Snow will be next season’s color. Along with darkness, but if the scenery gets any darker I won’t see anything on screen.

A song of fire: Sam arrives at Winterfell, safe and sound. He must have found out about his father and brother on the way, but it’s not mentioned. He meets with Bran, and by giving him a hint of where to look, Bran sees the wedding of Rhaegar Targaryen and Lyanna Stark. So they were legally married, and their child, Jon, is not a bastard, but the legal heir to the Throne, Aegon Targaryen. Boom. And there’s him and Daenerys being all Targaryeny.

Bigger thing than the heir business, is that Rhaegar is no longer sullied by the rape, which is the main thing he is remembered for. “He was a noble and great knight from the stories, a great prince, and a rapist whose horribleness brought about the rebellion.” But was that lie better than the truth? Or did someone, last generation’s Littlefinger, spin the story for the worst so a proper war could get started?

Anyway, has Daenerys fought all her battles so that she can give the throne to the rightful heir, who is not her, the Breaker of Chains?

A song of ice: Sansa and Arya talk, and remember their father’s words of working together: The lone wolf dies, but the pack survives. Legacy.

In the Eastwatch-by-the-sea, bad things happen. A dragon is a nuke option, and the Night King uses it gladly. Its power seems to be enough to destroy the Wall and remove the spells as well. And so the dead march to the lands beyond the Wall, bringing a new night with them.

After all the hype of the Wall, it couldn’t even put up a fight when the dead finally arrived. Beric Dondarrion and Tormund try to run to safety, and I can’t see if they succeed. But I’d presume that there would be a clearer shot if they died. And, well, we are talking of Beric Dondarrion here. He could always play dead.

But guess who from the Night Watch survived the apocalyptic event of the onslaught of the dead and the destruction of the Wall? And did it just by not being where the attack happened? My favourite watchman, Dolorous Edd. How does he do it?

By the way, Night Watch, Long Night, Night King, connecting these took too long for me.

#renly is right #game of thrones

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graceverse · 7 years

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WHAT IF?

Ok, so here’s a thought. What if in Season 8

1. Brienne arrives in Winterfell with Jaime and the Starklings are all: “we don’t want to have an audience with Jaime. Why? What do you mean why? He pushed Bran out of the window that’s why. We want him in the dungeon!” And Brienne goes, “but we’ve all done something that was vile and wrong and we were given second chances!” And the Staklings are still, “Nope, no!” So Jaime gives Brienne a “fuck loyalty, huh?” look before Brienne very gently nudges him inside his cell. She warns him, “I’ll be back, try not to escape.”

2. Meanwhile Sam and Bran tell Sansa and Arya Jon’s true parentage and Arya is like, ‘No! That’s not true! Jon’s my brother!’ But Sansa tells Sam to send a raven to the Citadel, “I want a written letter confirming the authenticity of this book!” And Sam goes, “You want me to write to the Citadel about the book I stole?” and the Starklings, go, “Uhm, yes? That’s exactly what we want you to do, is there a problem?” and Sam leaves them, on the verge of tears. So Arya asks, “what are we going to do?” And Sansa very regally juts out her chin and says, “what father had been doing all his life, we will protect Jon.” And Arya goes, “Fuck yeah!” And then Sansa very queenly tells her, “There must always be a Stark in Winterfell.” Arya is not sure what this means but Bran merely nods in agreement and Arya is all, “what the fuck is going on here?”

3. Jaime is granted an audience with the Starklings and he tells them about the Golden Company and then pledges his life to Sansa, and Sansa tells him to arise and all that shit and then she goes, “We will ride for Riverrun. You will pretend to be my prisoner.” And Jaime is all, “are you fucking kidding me?” Sansa raises her eyebrows at him, “does this bring you dishonor? To pretend to be captured by the family whose family you have slaughtered?” And that shuts up Jaime. Sansa declares, “Robb was King in the North and The Trident. I am Catelyn Stark’s eldest daughter, The Trident is mine.” Bran nods and Arya is all, “The Starks are coming for ya!” Sansa tells Arya, “when Jon arrives, don’t make trouble, we need him safe. He must not know yet. No one must know yet. Just make him suffer for bending the knee. But not the ‘I’ll cut your face and wear it’ shit, ok? He’ll cry.”

4. Jon arrives in Winterfell but Sansa is not there. He’s half relieved, half-crazy with worry, esp since Littlefinger is not creepily hanging out at the back. “Where is Sansa?” he asks, all broody and dark eyed and Arya very sadly says, “she’s gone.” And Jon goes all pale and wild eyed with grief and he looks like he’s about to stab himself with Longclaw when Bran says, “hey chill out, she’s out gathering armies for you because Cersei isn’t going to help you and will in fact attack the North with a bunch of Unsullied except only they have cocks, so they’re easier to bribe.” Jon and Dany both go: whaaaaat? While Tyrion is all: oh, shit! Dany announces, “I will go back south and take what is rightfully mine!” But Jon and Tyrion stops her, “you can’t! You promised the North! What kind of Queen are you if you will not hold your word?” Dany and Jon goes off to sulk. Separately.

5. Sansa rallies The Trident, presenting them with the Kingslayer and she tells them that all the women and children can leave for the impregnable Vale, where they will be safest. It would be the last to fall if the wars reach them. She will distribute the provisions the Blackfish had secured in Riverrun but she will need their help. Rumors about the wight in Kings Landing had reached them and because Sansa is honest and bad ass and is the daughter of Cat, the sister of Robb and the one who captured the Kingslayer for justice, they rally behind her. Also it’s winter, if anyone can get them through winter, its the Starks. Winter is coming, they always say and you can bet your ass they know exactly what to do in winter.

6. Cersei, upon hearing that Sansa has Jaime tells the The Golden Company to forget about Dragonstone, she ain’t getting shit from Dragonstone anyway. She wants Sansa and Jaime captured alive so she can punish them herself. She sends the Mountain with them whose sole task is to beat the shit out of Jaime and take the Stark Girl. The Golden Company camp a few miles away from Riverrun, ready to attack. But during the night, they are attacked by a bunch of giant feral wolves. Those that escapes blindly ran into Riverrun and are soundly defeated by Sansa’s army. The Mountain almost takes Sansa, but Jaime very neatly cuts off his legs and well, gravity.

7. Bran doesn’t need ravens and shit so he announces to the Northern Lords, to Team Bend The Knees, that Sansa has defended The Trident and is – gasp – heading towards King’s Landing. Dany doesn’t take it well and while planning her next move, she made the mistake of calling Sansa’s actions treasonous, punishable with death and Jon is not having any of that. He slams his fist on the table, making Dany jump, “YOU. DO. NOT. THREATEN. MY. SISTER. EVER.” Dany, shaken, lifts up her head and coolly says, “Oh, so now it’s my sister, you think I haven’t noticed how you act every time someone says her name?” and Jon is all, “what the fuck you talking about?” And that is the beginning of TargBowl.

8. The Lords of the Trident forgives Jaime because he saved their queen and he fought valiantly. Sansa tells him that he is longer a “prisoner” but is now her sworn sword. Jaime winks at Brienne and Brienne is as always, none too amused. Jaime tells Sansa she should go back to Winterfell, but Sansa shakes her head, “no, I don’t want to”, all pouty and sad eyed and Jaime figures it out, because he’s so been there and done that. He’s not at all sympathetic, “you foolish girl! You’re in love with your brother. Well, half-brother but… oh, seven hells…look at me and Cersei” and Sansa is indignant, “I am not Cersei and Jon is not you.” She almost tells Jaime that Jon is actually her cousin, thank you very much, but she has more sense than that, thank God for character development.

9. Sansa asks for Theon’s help and Theon pledges all the remaining Greyjoy ships to her cause. Sansa arrives in King’s Landing and tells the people that they need not fear Cersei anymore. Those who do not wish to be part of the coming war are free to go and they can seek shelter at The Trident, The Vale or even The North. Those brave enough can join her in taking King’s Landing from Cersei. Cersei sees the futility of killing the people of KL and burning it down to the ground. She’s done that already. And she hates being redundant. Also, all things considered, this is much better than dealing with dragons and so she readies her remaining armies. The people of KL is already sick of Cersei’s shit, so they wisely flock to Sansa.

10. Jon and Dany battles the Night King and the army of the dead and are triumphant but Drogon fought Viserion to death and now she only has Rhaegal. Sansa and Jaime battles Cersei.

Meanwhile in KL, Jaime kills Cersei, but not before he gets fatally wounded by Euron (sorry, Brienne + Jamie fans) Euron tries to flee, but is killed by The Greyjoylings. Cersei, Euron and Jaime dies. Sansa does not want the Iron Throne, but she makes the reveal of all reveals: she is taking the Iron Throne, in behalf of Jon Snow aka Aegon Targaryen – no, the other Aegon Targaryen, Rhaegar’s son from Lyanna Stark, the true heir of the Iron Throne and who is fighting in The North so that they will not have to face the horrors of the Night King’s Army. The people cheer for their king because they are sexist shits, but it’s not their fault, that’s how it was during those times. Sansa leaves Edmure and Lord Royce to take care of anything that needs taking care of while she’s gone. Sansa is so done with the South and she immediately rides North.

11. Dany is PISSED. She is FUMING MAD. She did not help the North defeat the White Walkers to be usurped by her NEPHEW. She thinks Jon deliberately did not tell her about his parentage and she was tricked by the WHOLE FUCKING NORTH, the STARKS most especially. Jon on the other hand is terrifically wounded but he’ll survive. He is CONFUSED and MOPEY and he’s all “NO. WAIT. WHAT? YOU’RE MY AUNT? SANSA IS MY COUSIN?!’ And is in no shape or form ready for another war. Dany wants to take Rhaegal and finally take the Iron throne but she is killed by… Tyrion or Varys. Or both of them. I don’t know. No one knows. No one saw it happened. So Jon is all, “but I don’t want the Iron Throne! It does not belong to the Targaryens. When is Sansa coming back home? Will she back soon? I miss her.” And Tyrion is, “well who the fuck does it belong to?” And Bran goes, “to the Baratheons.” And everyone groans out loud because they’ve had enough of these reveals and they make Bran promise that Gendry Baratheon will be the absolute LAST reveal. Sansa returns to Winterfell, triumphant and she’s so happy and she hugs Arya and goes, “the Storm Land is yours.” But Arya is all, “I don’t want to be a LADY!” and Sansa smiling sweetly almost evilly tells her, “yes, of course, you’re no Lady. You’re Queen.”

The Greyjoys are finally given their right and freedom to rule over their Island provided that they stop being assholes to everyone else. Yara and Theon are only happy to make peace with the rest of the Kingdom. The Vale and The Trident refuses to be parted from their Queen and so The Vale and The Trident are under the protection of the North. The rest of the houses also want the guidance of a King and Queen because they’re all lazy fucks and do not want the headache of ruling separate kingdoms. And so the South is ruled by Queen Arya Stark and the North is ruled by Queen Sansa Stark – because, fuck yeah for Stark women!

12. It takes a year and a half for Jon and Sansa to sort out everything, but they finally do it, to the relief of Tormund, because Brienne had told him she will not be stolen by Tormund unless Jon and Sansa becomes King and Queen in the North and Tormund had begged and begged Jon to just man up and steal Sansa, which Jon finally does. And Tormund could never be happier. He is already planning on how to steal Brienne.

THE END.

Ok. WAIT.

I think I want to actually write this as a fanfic, be right back.

#jonsa #brienne x tormund #gendrya #queen in the norh #queen in the south #daniella tumbleweed #jaime lannister #cersei lannister #this is how it will end #future fanfic

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