Doc:

As weird as certain elements of 'The Bells' felt, yanking us into this hearty scene then back to another odd rendezvous, we now sit in the funky position of pondering how this is all wrapped up. I, like many of youz out there, thought that there would be a nice little aftermath episode in the final episode of Game of Thrones and while we will still be graced with a more mellow aftermath vibe, there is still so much to be resolved between the remaining characters.

Mainly, the Dany vs Sansa predicament. Neither Sansa or Bran were present in The Bells, yet Sansa has clearly niggled Dany to the point where part of the responsibility of Dany losing the plot falls on Sansa and her hostile reception. While Dany has a history of ruling with a splash of fear, her rampage at King's Landing was the end point from a culmination of minor events that pushed her over the edge. Sansa played a few tricks she had learned along the way and then the honourable Jon Snow couldn't simply give Dany a bit of love, fueling the complicated fire burning instead Khalessi.

Sansa, Jon and Dany are still alive. Dany clearly stated her disgregard for Sansa and Varys suffered the sacrficial lamb fate, while Jon is fresh off of seeing the destruction first and that Dany dealt. Jon was staunch in his support of Dany and there is something admirable in how he rejected Dany, concentrating his energy on serving his queen. As viewers, we have seen Jon go through these steps and for The Bells to put so much time into Jon's experience of how a human can bring so much death, now puts Jon in a very interesting wee spot.

Consider Arya also, as she was in the same situation as Jon in the streets of King's Landing. Both Arya and Jon experienced what Dany is capable of, or what she has become and it's hard to imagine either of them being willing to accept this moving forward. While Arya and Jon now appear to have a certain energy to Dany, this is shared with Sansa and the Stark whanau is now set up to take action. This throws up how Bran is involved as well in the last episode and whether he can offer anything to help the situation.

Tyrion is a prime candidate to get fried next, given that all he does is 'betray' Dany. With Cersei out of the way, there is a very clear divide and Dany's perception of this earlier in the season has now become a reality. That's a powerful little lesson to apply in real life; if you believe people are against you and whip yourself into a frenzy of fear and insecurity, then your mindset and actions genuinely turn people against you.

Now Dany has an army that serves her, while the remaining characters have all been dealt the dish of death and destruction. I can only really see this predicament ending one way and even though I'm confident it will end this certain way, I don't know how or for sure that another curveball won't stop this from happening.

Wildcard:

Everybody has a choice to make, Varys left us with that wisdom last week and he died for it this week. Varys made his choice. He made his choice definitively and he stuck with that choice, accepting the risks that it took. And in the end he was proved right but he didn’t live long enough to see it thanks to a pair of his closest allies who each refused to make their choices.

We might not have seen the end of Varys’ web-spinning yet either. Even as he was torched alive by dragonfire, just as Dany promised she’d do if he ever betrayed him way back when (seriously, how do people not see that Dany’s always had this streak in her? More on that later), the parchment that he burned when Grey Worm came to collect his dues didn’t add up to numbers the parchments he’d already written and, presumably, despatched. And let’s not ignore the hint with the little kitchen girl that he’d been trying to poison Daenerys in between this ep and the last (seems to be implied that there was a few weeks between them). We know that the letter was about Jon’s parentage because we saw it. But who did he send it to? Like, who is even left alive of the once-great families of Westeros? Are there any power structures left that can do anything with that information? Dorne, perhaps? The Iron Bank?

On a side note the shrinking of the world of characters has been a real disappointment to me, even if I understand that they’re trying to wrap things up. But this has never been a show that needed wrapping up in that conventional way, take us to the end of these main characters’ stories but don’t kid us that there aren’t complicated stories to follow. We haven’t had a single new relevant character introduced this season and I can’t remember any from the last one either. Baby Sam is the only sign of a next generation now that Cersei’s been crushed. This used to be such a rich world of people.

Varys made his choice but his choice alone wasn’t enough. Dany made her choice as the bells rang out at King’s Landing. She made the choice to unleash her full fury upon thousands of innocents even as her army had already earned a surrender. The thing is, Dany has a saviour complex. She thinks that the throne is hers by birthright and she’s convinced herself that she can be better than those who came before her. Freeing slaves overseas earned her absolute adoration as the breaker of chains but there were no chains to break in Westeros, only a wheel. In her mind the adoration of her freed slaves was the benchmark and she was never going to get freefolk in Westeros to feel the same way about her, certainly not as she barged in on a dragon and threatened their way of life. Jon earned his love in the north through actions and courage. There’s nothing courageous about flying into town on a dragon.

A dragon is basically a nuclear weapon in this world, such is its immense power. We finally saw the culmination of that in this episode as Drogon was unleashed to his full potential, decimating the iron fleet and annihilating King’s Landing and all who dwelled within it. It’s pretty obvious in this day and age that nuclear weaponry is immoral even in concept but to actually use one… now Dany has become death, destroyer of worlds. You cannot control the damage that a dragon does once you let it loose. As soon as she rode into battle on that sucker there was carnage afoot – this wasn’t like the last big battle where every enemy was already dead. They could bust whatever they wanted then. Probably got too much in the habit of busting because this was pure and simply a war crime of atrocious capacity.

But even when Dany freed the slaves… remember what she did to the slavers? Crucified the lot of them. She burned Samwell’s family alive, even if they were given a choice in the matter. She has burned down buildings before. She has been brutal and vindictive from the start in combination with her sweeter and nurturing side. But back then she either didn’t have a dragon or she had a dragon but also had wise heads whom she trusted to keep her on the path. Cersei’s brutality was brought upon by threats to and the deaths of her children. Dany’s no different – two dead dragons and her closest advisors still grieved for – no wonder she was so broken by losing Jorah, who was head over heels in love with her. That’s the reaction she expects from everyone.

Varys is a eunuch so fat chance there. He was perfectly impartial and when he saw she was losing control, he stepped off the dance floor… but unfortunately he did some silly things that weren’t really in keeping with his character and he showed his hand. Jon and Tyrion were the two he confided in most openly and it led to his death. Why? Because Jon and Tyrion are in love with Daenerys. Jon more so, obviously, but it seems he’s conflicted about the whole auntie thing. Fair enough. Tyrion less obviously but remember him spotting Jonny and Dany getting down and dirty at the end of last season? He loves her too, in his own way.

Tyrion has compassion in his heart which has always kept him endearing. But with the future of the realm resting almost completely in his hands at that point, he chose Dany over Varys. Except he chose Dany on a conditional level because he tried to compromise with his brother and, hey, for all the chat about Tyrion’s many mistakes… this plan worked perfectly. He got the surrender without too much damage. The bells rang loud and clear. But Dany didn’t stick to the plan and you can’t blame the imp for that much. He was willing to risk his own life to save tens of thousands of others which was as noble a choice as it gets… but he declined to make the one choice that truly could have stopped all this.

Dany is responsible for her own actions here and the series finale will deal with all that. Jon was left helpless in the midst of that battle and that was not his fault. However, just like Tyrion, his refusal to make his choice was culpable in not preventing this. Jon doesn’t want the throne, right? He keeps on saying that except it ain’t his bloody choice. Like, he is literally the heir to the iron throne. That is his destiny and he refused it, he refused to take responsibility for his true self and just look what happened instead? Whether he loves Dany or not, whether he’s bent the knee to her or not, whether he thinks she’s a better ruler or whether he even wants it at all… none of that matters because the fact is that he is the rightful heir and he’s been dodging that fact and allowing all this to happen instead. If he truly didn’t want it then he shouldn’t have told Sansa and them. You can’t have it both ways, make a decision Snowbags!

Again it’s hard not to feel like they should have just kept this as a regular sized season and given themselves more time to flesh it all out (ideally by getting rid of most of season seven). Jaime’s character arc was worst of all, his betrayal of Brienne was utterly dumb yet having now seen his death in the arms of the woman he loves… it was a fitting send off for him and Cersei. The world crumbled around them as they stood amongst the consequences of their actions but all the worst things they did, they did for the purest thing possible: love. At the very end we were reminded of their core humanity.

Which made me wonder if Jaime ever needed to ride north at all – although we’d have missed out on some classic Tyrion + Jaime scenes that way (there was another classic in this one). I guess we just needed more evidence that Jaime was as conflicted as he really was for leaving Cersei, book Jaime was always way more fascinating because of the inner monologues about his Kingslayer legacy. As for Euron vs Jaime, that was possibly the stupidest thing yet. Euron just happens to wash up on the same hidden beach as Jaime so they could fight it out over Cersei? Bugger off, please.

Elsewhere we got our Clegane Bowl. The Mountain went full Frankenstein’s monster and destroyed his creator with all the careless ease that Qyburn deserved, while Cersei carefully skipped past them to leave the brothers to their familial vengeance. The Hound drove his zombie brother over the ledge and down into the flames below, conquering his greatest fear through his greatest motivation. It was all very Star Wars, wasn’t it?

As for Arya going all that way only to decide she didn’t really need to kill Cersei after all? Another silly bit of writing. Same with her dodging falling buildings over and over like they were made of lego. But it did put her in a situation where the ruthless, nameless assassin that she’d become was once more confronted with chaos and she chose the human course of action. Her choice was to help the innocents. Dany’s was to destroy them.

Arya’s list may now be empty but I’ve a suspicion that there’s a new list now and it has but one name upon it.

Death comes riding a pale horse.

GOT S08E05 Power Rankings

Daenerys Targaryen – I mean, yeah. Jeezus. She said she didn’t wanna be queen of the ashes but unless that was actually just her saying how much she dislikes the sport of cricket and we misunderstood then it looks like that’s all she’s got left
Sandor Clegane – Cheers bro, on behalf of the Stark girls. And also for those of us uncomfortable with the idea of genetic engineering on humans, particularly dead ones
Cersei & Jaime Lannister – They came into the world together and they went out of it together
Arya Stark – The white horse was very Twin Peaksy, gotta love it, especially after the little Pompeii girl that she wasn’t able to save had been carrying a wooden toy of a horse. Arya didn’t need to kill Cersei but she needed to witness the carnage like nobody else could. Next week will be pretty interesting…
Tyrion Lannister – His plan worked perfectly! A much needed victory to save the reputation of the former Smartest Person in the Realm. At least until the person in charge of that plan decided to defy the coach and take things off script.
Aaron Rodgers – Speaking of ignoring coaches and doing it all yourself… NFL quarterback Aaron Rodgers cameoed in this one!
Lord Varys – History will judge that he was on the right side of it
Davos Seaworthy – Running out of people who had good episodes amidst all the tragedy… the Onion Knight might be a legendary smuggler but stealing a set of keys was pretty simple for him, same deal with the dingy if that was his work… but he stood at the frontline of another major battle and came out unscathed despite not being a fighter so the track record lives on
Sansa Stark – Probably a good one to sit out, for a variety of reasons
The White Horse – Bloody who else is there left at this point? Ol’ chompers there came through unscathed which was good for him. Was it Harry Strickland’s horse though? Did it survive or was it resurrected by the Lord of Light? Did Bran warg into it?

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