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I was a bit disappointed in the attack sequence but what are the main complaints about this season?
Many say it feels rushed. But plot wisebi don't know what specifically they are mad about?
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Who rang the bells?
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Was Varys able to get any messages out by raven or messenger?
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I was a bit disappointed in the attack sequence
How on God's forsaken earth can you be disappointed in the attack sequence? It's one of the most gruelling, visceral, brutal and kinetic action sequences I've ever seen in a TV series. What are your comparative standards, I wonder....
A bit...
Specifically I wanted the mano a mono battles to be more inventive.
Euron fails to finish off Jamie giving him a chance to kill him. We have seen this before e.g. Theon.
The Hound was beaten so badly he should have died or been unable to fight back.
Cersei buried alive.
Look I love the show and MOST of the last episode. Just wanted better ' final confrontation' scenes.
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I was a bit disappointed in the attack sequence
How on God's forsaken earth can you be disappointed in the attack sequence? It's one of the most gruelling, visceral, brutal and kinetic action sequences I've ever seen in a TV series. What are your comparative standards, I wonder....
Battle of Blackwater
Battle of the Bastarss
Battle.of Hardhome...
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And don't dragons have a limited amount of firepower? Dragon never stopped to replenish.
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Re: Season Eight, Episode Five "The Bells"
O.K., Sports Fans...
Longtime Dissenters will Die Screaming thread aficionados will forgive me for getting a botched start to this episode. I'm sure you'll all understand. A minimum of two viewings of this most monumental of Game of Thrones episodes is a little much to digest all at once.
So, here goes; an assessment of where this flaming wreck of a medieval epic fantasy is headed begins with...
Varys, penning a missive to some Westerosi lord, no doubt. One of many he has undoubtedly been sending by raven to the four corners of Westeros (and beyond?). An obvious betrayal, for which he is made to pay, surprisingly by Tyrion who, as the episode begins, is still in fidelity to Daenerys. "I hope I deserve this" Varys says during his goodbye to Tyrion. Yes, he might. Though by the end of the episode, it is clear that Varys is likely correct to have informed the realm of Jon's parentage and Daenerys' despondency. Goodbye, Varys. It is likely you did not die in vain.
Jon Snow, in a previous tete-a-tete with Varys, is informed that Varys prefers him to Daenerys as ruler. Jon is seemingly impassive at Varys' immolation, with a hint of sadness. Post-execution, Daenerys attempts to rekindle Jon's love. Jon's iciness further incenses the Dragon Queen. Big mistake but, hey, we've all been in a situation where a former lover does not entice, and paid some price. The price for Jon may be too much for Westeros (and beyond?) to bear.
Tyrion, in the Dragonstone throne room, begs Daenerys not to attack King's Landing, but let a further negotiation enable Cersei to exchange her life for the throne. Tyrion mentions the thousands of innocents who will pay for crimes not of their own doing. Daenerys asserts that the ends justify the means for future generations who will live without tyranny. As Tyrion goes to leave, Daenerys informs him of Jaime Lannister's capture as he attempted to run the Dragon Queen's perimeter to reach Cersei. Daenerys says "The next time you fail me will be the last time." Gulp.
Lo, these last few interminable seasons, it has been unfathomable to me why cardboard-cutout characters like Missandei and Grey Worm have been in so many scenes, to so little purpose. Now, at last, with this one episode, does it become clear that vengeance for the murdered Missandei will fuel the ultimate conflagration. Daenerys barely assents to have Grey Worm and the Unsullied troops hold their advance into King's Landing if the city bells are rung. Tyrion takes this concession directly to Davos Seaworth, who smuggles Tyrion directly to...
His brother, Jaime, looking all grim tied and collered to a stake, just as he was held captive by Catelyn Stark in season two. In a touching farewell, Tyrion thanks Jaime for being a true brother and friend. He pleads with Jaime to get into the city, spirit Cersei away to Pentos, but most importantly ring the damn bell to halt the Northmen/Dragon Queen advance into the city, sparing the innocent thousands whom, in Jaime's words "I never cared much for, innocent or not."
As the mass exodus into King's Landing concludes, Jaime is locked outside the gates before the shit goes down, while Arya Stark and Sandor "The Hound" Clegane slip in at the last moment. I love how these two have become little Westerosi James Bonds in the years leading up to this. The conflagration wouldn't have been the same without them.
Daenerys starts the attack on the Iron Fleet. Atop her mightiest and sole remaining dragon, Drogon, she sweeps the Iron Fleet out of existence, and plunges Euron "Crow's-Eye" Greyjoy into Blackwater Bay. Apparently, she's learned how not to expose herself unduly to all those scorpions (giant crossbows) mounted on all those ships and the city walls.
Outside the gates, Jon, Tyrion and Davos, will thousands of allied Northmen, Unsullied and Dothraki face off against Handsome Harry Strickland and The Golden Company, the mercenary army whom Strickland pledged to fight for Cersei in this season's first episode, for all the good it will do her. Daenerys blasts the city gates open from behind. Obliterating most of The Golden Company but for Harry, who is cut down by Grey Worm as he tries to retreat back into the city ahead of the Good Guys' army.
Jaime has somehow entered the city as this first round of attacks concludes. The city passes into an eerie calm as the smallfolk plead, "Ring the bells! Ring the bells", even comforting Cersei in the Red Keep with the thought that the attack might end here. Jon Snow and the Good Guys reach a crossroads where a Lannister army contingent stands waiting...and drops its swords. Still no bells. Jaime frantically tries to gain the belltower that Tyrion is contemplating through the blasted walls of the city. Calm reigns, except for Grey Worm, who impetuously spears a Lannister soldier. Notice the look on Grey Worm's face as he realizes that Jon had meant to hold off on the attack. Grey Worm is not pleased. Daenerys, distraught, contemplates the Red Keep, then continues the attack, raining fire on all those innocents Tyrion Lannister begged her not to.
Jon, drawn against his will into battle, saves a woman from a rape by killing her assailant, a fellow Northerner. Cersei's composure is lost, and her Hand, Qyburn urges her into Maegor's Holdfast with the dragonfire attack not just continuing, but intensifying. Arya and the Hound make it into the Red Keep. In the Map Room, already being filled with debris from the continual dragonfire shockwaves, The Hound tell Arya she must go back or die. Arya complies with a solemn farewell to Sandor, as he turns to the interior of the keep.
In the streets of the city, under continual dragonfire sweeps, Jon fights on. Surprising that no one on this thread has yet mentioned the many flashes of green that appear above the red-orange flames laid down by Drogon. Wildfire! Is there wildfire remaining in underground caches in the city? Remember the Mad King, Aerys III Targaryen, who filled the underground spaces of King's Landing with "The Substance" in advance of Robert's Rebellion and, when he was stabbed in the back by Jaime Lannister, the Kingslayer, was exhorting his men to "Burn them all!" Do all those caches from that time still remain underneath King's Landing? I'd stated, with a lot of conviction back at the end of season six that, with Tyrion's use of wildfire to obliterate the fleet of Stannis Baratheon in the Battle of the Blackwater, and Cersei's use of it to destroy the Sept of Baelor at season six's end, there was no remaining wildfire left in the city. It appears that I was mistaken. This means something.
Very significant is the matter that Arya Stark is made to evade dragonfire and cling to survival with all the smallfolk in King's Landing. Fine action sequences featuring her take us into the heart of the maelstrom. I think Arya's perspective on Daenerys could be affected by this experience.
Now to Maegor's Holdfast. Cersei nearly buys it when a side tower collapses as the Royal entourage, Cersei, Qyburn, and Ser Gregor Clegane the Undead Queensguard make their way down the steps...and run smack into The Hound. I won't really comment on "Cleganebowl" but to say that the unmasked Gregor has a nice Darth Vader-y gruesomeness under that helmet. I loved the way he dispatched Qyburn ("Ser Gregor! Obey your queen!"), dashing his brains out with a pummel into broken stone, then a hurl onto the lower steps, with additional brains dashed out. I got the impression the undead Gregor's animus toward Qyburn was just as much for his own zombie-fication as for any of Qyburn's undoubted crimes against the innocent. A fine villain's death.
Interesting that Sandor Clegane didn't dispatch Cersei himself as she moved past him in the Cleganebowl prelude. Jaime Lannister encounters Euron Greyjoy at the subterranean entrance to the Red Keep. Euron gets two significant stab wounds into Jaime's sides. The Kingslayer manages to recover sufficiently to impale Euron on a spike. Is Euron meant to live? The show cuts away before he expires, but I don't think he'll live.
Finally, Jaime reunites with Cersei in the disintegrating Map Room. Now here's another instance in which I couldn't figure out why the hell the showrunners kept giving us scenes of rekindled passion between these two long after it made sense. Especially when you consider that, at the end of A Song of Ice and Fire novel five, A Feast for Crows, Jaime is most definitely cooling towards his sister/lover. Now, like the seemingly inexplicable Missandei/Grey Worm emphasis of past seasons, it becomes clear that the show has been written backwards from this point. The fates of Missandei and the two eldest Lannisters being thematic instigators that the entirety of the show cannot be understood without.
And, with Jaime and Cersei, it is a most poetic theme. They've deserved this fate ever since they decided to push a small child out of a Winterfell tower to keep their love a secret. The Luck of the Lannisters finally and, most ironically, fails. The subterranean entrances are choked with rubble, with no escape. Cersei loses it. It is entirely just that she dies at the conclusion of an hours-long episode of emotional agony. Much more drawn out than a simple beheading or hanging would have caused. As for Jaime, he's been resigned to this for quite some time, hasn't he? As he made clear to Brienne before he left Winterfell, his participation in the Battle of The Long Night had in no way expunged his crimes, especially that of crippling Brandon Stark; so we have some sense that Jaime is resigned at death. Not Cersei, who has deserved all the agonies she's brought on herself. It's a dual irony that being crushed to a jelly beneath hundreds of thousands of tons of rubble is a mercy for her.
This ends my "official review" of the episode, but I will have some further comment tomorrow on the implications of all this for Jon, Arya, and especially Tyrion.
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I fear Sansa on the throne. She will NOT rule wisely nor compassionately.
She showed her true self by betraying Jon.
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Thanks to BOAJ for his great summary!
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Yes Born the little bursts of green n the green tinge.
I saw that but i think aftr the gloom of the long night fog i thought it was my tv!
Could this be how they kill the last dragon? A stash of wildfire.
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I fear Sansa on the throne. She will NOT rule wisely nor compassionately.
She showed her true self by betraying Jon.
Well... Yeah!
This is GOT's not a Disney fairy tale. It would be out of character to have a "happy" ending.
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What's the running time of the ep tonite?
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Some final speculations before Season Eight, Episode Six:
A few final short musings before the big finale...
Jon Snow was decidedly unenthusiastic about prosecuting the battle in King's Landing, whereas Unsullied leader Grey Worm appeared to resent this. I'd speculate this'll translate into Daenerys' suspicion of Jon in tonight's finale. I don't think Jon'll be killed; I just wonder who's death it will take to turn him against Daenerys. Samwell Tarly's? Don't forget, his dad and brother have already been immolated by the Dragon Queen. Tyrion's? Not likely, I'd think. Sansa? Daenerys' motives for attacking Winterfell are twofold; (1): Sansa was cool to Daenerys; Sansa let slip Jon's parentage to Tyrion, and (2): Sansa's loyalties are Northern loyalties, she'll never put Daenerys' prerogatives first without some political agreement...which seems highly unlikely at this point.
Tyrion looks awfully crestfallen in this week's publicity photo from episode six. He tried every way he could to prevent this massacre, to no avail. And, of course, he's already on the knife's edge with Daenerys, who might just decide to complete the destruction of House Lannister, "...root and stem.", just as House Lannister once did to the Reynes of Castamere (Hence the song about the inevitable crushing of the Lannisters' enemies, "The Rains of Castamere", theme song of House Lannister.). I think, as Tyrion balks at Daenerys' likely increasing sadism (or, more sensibly, his flight from her sphere of control.), he'll become, at the least, a target.
Not that Tyrion will have nothing to do besides flee. We know from the cast list that the major houses of Westeros will enter into a conference in this episode. I'd say it'll be likely that Tyrion and Jon and Sansa will all be present. Will Daenerys have the wit to try a The Godfather: Part III-style mass hit on the leaders of Westeros? I wouldn't discount the possibility. Tyrion, at that theoretical point, would be not only a political threat, but a strategic threat!
Considering not only Tyrion's knowledge of Daenerys' forces, but the possibility that he might discover the secret of the presumed caches of wildfire still hidden beneath King's Landing (last week's green flashes!), combined with his night-long conference with Brandon Stark, which could result in the introduction of strategic variables yet unknown, may make Tyrion Lannister the biggest threat the Dragon Queen faces. It's been too long, Tyrion. Welcome back to being the center of the show! And just in time!
Lastly, I wonder about Arya Stark. In what could be a spoiler, actress Maisie Williams posted months ago to social media the fact that her last scene filmed for the show was a combat sequence. Now, this could have been a pickup from "The Long Night". Yet, I can't help but feel that there is no more logical time for Arya's skills as a trained killer to come into use than this episode.
Here are the possibilities as I see them. Most likely, Grey Worm turns against Jon Snow with his spear, and Arya Stark defends him. Also possible, some sort of attempt by sellsword Bronn. Remember him? "I'll see you after the war" he said to Tyrion and Jamie in Winterfell after the zombie battle. Would Arya Stark be called upon by Tyrion as the result of a decreed trial by combat in the presence of Daenerys or other nobles? I think this is unlikely. I do expect Tyrion to die. It's so unthinkable that it becomes thinkable. Just contemplate the delicious irony: escaping death at the hands or flames of Daenerys, just to be cut down by an amoral sellsword for failing to deliver a lordship. This disturbing possibility will not be expunged!
Will Arya have to endure two combats this episode? I just don't know. Anyway, these three characters are the center of the show for me, pre-finale. I hope they make it!
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