20 Thoughts on Game Of Thrones S08E05

My thoughts on this episode in roughly chronological order

1. Varys’ execution
   First off, the rumours he was spreading was true, so Dany’s hard-line no-inconvenient-truths policy is pretty hard to defend. Also makes it easier for people to defect to Jon’s cause when you know that you’re playing with death by capitulating to Dany’s game. I have no idea why Tyrion didn’t just nope the fuck out of Dany’s cause ages ago, I guess he’s learnt his lesson now though. Also Varys tearing up seems super out of character. I just think he’s too cold for that. Maybe he teared up because the writers want us to take on face value that he was truly acting ‘for the realm’ but I still don’t buy that.
2. Dany and Jon’s fight
   Dany and Jon in a one-on-one scene. I still don’t buy the romance in the first place, so it’s hard for me to buy the tension in the romance. And Dany’s overt threat at the end that basically says she’s gonna do something horrible. Am I supposed to believe Jon didn’t object to that remark? The writers keep making a scene end after a character says something really important that drives a wedge between them and the other character, but then doesn’t give the other character the chance to respond and show us where they stand. Are we supposed to just assume there was an awkward silence or they laughed it off and just parted ways or something?
3. Tyrion looking mortified
   Tyrion walking around looking horrified at the carnage going on around him, without actually doing anything himself. I’m tired of seeing this exact same scene being redone in every episode. I think the directors just did a focus group where the main response was ‘keep showing Tyrion looking horrified at all the shit happening around him’.
4. Dany vs Euron’s fleet
   Dany attacking Euron’s ships. What the fuck? A one on one between a dragon and some ships didn’t fare well last episode, no idea why Dany thought it would go well this episode. Yes she was flying behind the sun but I don’t care, it still feels like a bad strategy (how did she get there in the first place?). They could have had a couple of Dany’s ships with barely any crew go and act as decoys to get smashed by the ballista fire, only for the dragon to attack from the other direction. Anything to make me feel like this wasn’t just a complete fluke that the dragon wasn’t killed.
5. Lannisters standing out front
   The lannister army stationed outside the city walls. Is that actually a thing? Isn’t the point of having a castle that you station your guys on the inside and get your archers to ping off heaps of the enemy before they actually make it inside? Why station guys out the front?
6. Fire > Stone
   The lannister army gets crushed by the debris from the dragon flaming the entrance from the inside. Has it been established that dragon fire is that powerful, that it can crush through stone? Wasn’t the point of Harrenhall (season 2 where Arya meets Tywin) that it was a powerful castle that could withstand any ground troops, but it was lost to Aegon when he attacked it from above? If dragons could easily destroy castle walls, I’m not sure why the story of Harrenhall is so special.
7. Tyrion releasing Jaime
   So apparently the queen didn’t order for Jaime to be locked up, and we aren’t told who did, but Tyrion releases him either way. We already saw Dany put aside her differences with Jamie in episode 2 of this season, so I’m not sure why Tyrion didn’t just consult Dany about the plan so that he didn’t need to go behind her back. Especially given that the punishment for that appears to be immolation at this point.
8. Dany vs Ballistas
   Dany taking out all the ballistas in Kings Landing. Just as hard to believe as her taking out all of Euron’s ships. Are you seriously telling me none of them could turn around in time?
9. Nobody recognises Arya or The Hound
   The Hound and Arya rock up posing as civilians even though Arya is not even hooding herself. What gives? Missandei can wash up on a beach with her signature frizzy hair straightened by sea water, after making a grand total of zero appearances in King’s Landing before, and be identified and taken hostage immediately, but Arya and The Hound, two people who look fairly distinct compared to the other civilians, and who have both spent a long time in King’s Landing, and who would make game-changing hostage material (imagine Jon’s reaction to Arya getting taken hostage), are completely overlooked? What?
10. Jaime sneaks into his own castle
    Jaime also poses as a civilian, taking his glove off for some reason. Why was it on in the first place? Wouldn’t it be in his best interests to be spotted by a Lannister from the get-go so he could be escorted to the queen? It’s not like there were other forces in kings landing he wanted to avoid.
11. Dany loses it
    The Lannisters surrender and drop their swords. Really good moment, ruined by Dany’s bizarre freak out. I actually really liked Emilia Clarke’s acting this episode, she looked completely washed up at the start of the episode and throughout the episode we saw sides to her character I don’t think we’ve seen before which is a nice change from the self righteous smugness that has been the norm in earlier seasons. But this freak out was just written badly. I get that as the viewer you’re supposed to be like ‘Dany thinks she can only get the throne by means of fear, not love’ but couldn’t they have triggered her freak out with something so that it’s actually clear what’s going on? The Lannisters, after dropping their swords, could spot Jon and start chanting that he’s the true king or something, trying to spare their own lives. Or, given that they might not know about Jon’s heritage, maybe Jon’s own men could have started chanting something flattering to him. Anything to make Dany’s freak out feel a little less spontaneous.
12. Grey Worm loses it
    Grey worm chucking his spear and going nuts. I think this was good, it’s clear he’s grieving about Missandei, and I like how he went against his characteristic unsullied discipline by going psycho, but the ensuing fight felt kinda off. Sure, the unsullied are Dany’s troops, so they’ll follow her lead. Same with the Dothraki. But why are the northerners happily killing innocents without any command from Jon? Especially when Jon explicitly says STOP FIGHTING. If this is commentary on how messy war is and how hard it is to give commands in the midst of a battle, then I can appreciate that, but I just feel like if you were one of Jon’s men and you can hear him a few metres away saying stop the fight, you wouldn’t think twice, unless you wanna be executed post-battle for disobeying direct orders.
13. Jon saves the day
    Jon stops a rape from happening, and the northerner tries to kill him. Again, if it’s commentary about war, I get it, but why not get a Dothraki to do it so that the attempt on Jon’s life is a little easier to parse?
14. Jaime gets stabbed twice, walks it off
    Jaime goes to the super secret beach to get to Cersei, and bumps into Euron. Oh my god. There have been so many coincidental rendesvous between main characters on this beach. If it’s such a critical place, why the hell aren’t any guards stationed there? Euron proceeds to stab Jaime twice before Jaime gets Euron back. Given that Jaime dies at the end of the episode anyway, I’m not sure why he needs to take what appears to be two fatal blows, before then just walking off with a slight limp. I actually like how Euron said ‘I got you, I got you’. That line really sticks with me for some reason.
15. Revenge not so cool after all
    The hound and Arya are about to go up to meet Cersei, and then the hound tells Arya that revenge can turn you into a monster, and Arya actually heeds his advice. I think this was a good turning point for Arya because the whole ‘list’ thing always felt a little shallow to me. Not sure what motivates the hound though. Does he really hate his brother that much?
16. Cersei steps out of the ring
    The mountain disobeys orders to stand by the queen. I think that’s pretty cool, our first glimpse of him still being alive despite his transformation. Definitely makes the fight between him and his brother more meaningful. What I don’t get is how Cersei thinks it’s cool to just walk past the hound to leave the two to fight. She really had no way of knowing whether the hound would just kill her on the spot.
17. The Clegane brothers fight
    The Clegane brothers fight it out, we get a nod to season 4 when the viper gets his skull crushed via eye sockets, but Sandor makes it out alive. Then he kamikazes and falls to his death with his brother. I’m not so sure that the kill was worth the suicide, but if he thought he was going to die anyway then I get it. As a viewer I would have liked a little more of an insight into why specifically the hound was willing to die to kill his brother. Yes the fight was cool, but, The hound went from ‘fuck King’s Landing, fuck everyone’ to ‘I want to fight for the living’ to ‘I want to die killing my brother’?
18. Jaime killed without resolution
    Jaime meets up with Cersei. Although I would have been really mad if Jaime had just died on the beach, his reunion with Cersei was only satisfying in that they died together. Cersei’s character shows some humanity when she sees Jaime, which is nice, but then Jaime basically just consoles her as they both brace for death, and then they die. I feel like there has been so much foreshadowing of Jaime having to make a final decision about whether to betray Cersei or not, especially given Maggi the Frog’s prophecy that Cersei would be killed by her brother, it just feels like such a cop out for the circumstances to avail Jaime of that dilemma. This episode, they wanted Dany to be the bad guy, meaning Cersei had to end up being a helpless victim, meaning Jaime had no real ultimatum forced upon him. We’re also left having no idea what effect Jaime sleeping with Brienne had on his feelings towards Cersei, and to what extent Jaime’s love for Cersei has been wavered by her recent psychopathy. Honestly a bit pissed off about this one. And it really comes down to Dany being the bad guy this episode; they just couldn’t have two bad guys.
19. More offscreen miracles for Arya
    Arya spends ages trying to get out of King’s Landing. The plot armour is strong with this one. The minor bond she had with the mother and daughter was a nice touch, but this sequence was generally just way too stretched out and it was so obvious she wasn’t going to die. This felt like episode three again. First she supposedly gets crushed by debris, then she’s miraculously alive again, then she supposedly get’s blasted by dragon flames, then she’s miraculously alive again (with eyebrows in tact), then another hit from debris, and now she’s waking up in Pompei with nothing to show for it but a coughing fit. Seriously. Stop. Doing. This. It’s insulting. ON-SCREEN PROBLEMS DESERVE ON-SCREEN RESOLUTIONS. And we don’t need to be shown the same sequence of events three times in a row. Just use the gimmick once and then move on.
20. A horse named Serendipity
    Arya rides off on a horse that pops up out of nowhere and doesn’t look shook at all despite what’s just happened. She then trots off out of kings landing, with absolutely no other living person in sight. This is just bad writing. There is nothing wrong with serendipity, but when serendipity is the primary engine through which the plot progresses, as opposed to the interactions between characters, there is no incentive as a viewer to conjecture at what might happen in any given episode, because it’s all going to be dependent on what bizarre sequence of coincidences the writers pick to move the plot where they want it to go.

All in all, a bad episode. I know it’s hard to write complex plots involving many characters, so I’m not going to judge too hard on the macro level decisions. But so many of these scenes could have just been done in a more realistic way without having to alter the course of the plot. Dany crushing Euron’s ships, Dany going rogue, Jaime getting stabbed twice, Arya getting fake-killed three times in a row, all of these things could have been improved without any impact on other scenes. Oh well, at least Jaime and Cersei died how they were born; together.