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The only right any being has from birth is the right to fight for his wants, for his needs, and for his very survival. There are no god given rights, only the unquestionable law of nature for the strong to survive.
There you go, expecting logical tactical decisions again
To be fair, I'm not sure even attacking from behind would do any good against those super powered ultra-magical ballista.
Being hundreds of feet in the air gives you visibility for dozens of miles in all directions. It's how aircraft were able to spot submarines and were used as recon scouts in WW2. But appareantly, a whole fleet can sneak up on them within accurate and effective ballistae range.
Because Danny just forgot about'em. She's blind too, apparently.
Hmmm....
Oh dear...
And they just handed these guys a Star Wars trilogy. How reassuring...
- I have mixed feelings about this episode. On the one hand, this wasn't a battle as much as it was just a massacre.
- The Golden Company - useless, pointless, might as well not even have been mentioned. They amounted to a couple of regiments out the front of the gates (ugh) that get burned, and...that's it. Might as well not even been in the season.
- The scorpions/balistae - again, useless. They were built up as this equalising weapon last episode and this episode they were completely useless. We're also shown green wildfire, so it was clear that Cersei had some sort of plan which amounted to nothing. Instead of Rhaegul dying last episode to demonstrate the balistae last episode, why not have him die to them this episode along with wildfire? Then the sudden emotional rush sends Danny over the edge?
Like really, they hyped these weapons up so much. They hyped up the numbers of the Golden Company, of Cersei's time to prepare etc and it was absolutely nothing. She just flies in with her dragon and that's it, game over.
- Lannister troops are apparently completely useless. They're supposed to be among the best trained and equipped soldiers in Westeros due to the wealth and militaristic nature of House Lannister, but apparently they're completely useless again in this episode.
- The Dothraki reveal themselves to be utter scumbags that I always knew they were (and that most people seemed to forget about from the first season).
- Danny's gone mad and become the villain of the series. I called this since Season 2.
- Cesei died in a really lackluster and anticlimactic way. So now D&D decide to stick to prophecy - Cersei dying with her younger brothers hands/arms around her neck, which happens when Jaime and her die embracing each other in caves. I was expecting Jaimie to see Cersei's wildfire plot (see above) and turn on her, but apparently not.
- I really, really, really hate what they did with Jaime this season. The guys whole arc has been an arc of redemption, yet they threw it away this season. You can never change, folks.
- This episode really "subverted expectations" in that they were building up this big siege with back-and-forth fortunes of battle. But it was really just a one-sided massacre with Danny revealing herself as the villain.
I expected Dany's turn to come, but maybe make the episode have a bit more...tension.
Danny finally realized that if youre a packmaster hunter and you redistribute your ranger level to your single remaining dragon after losing the other 2 the last one actually becomes viable.
Talk about a pointless yet so very much telegraphed massacre. Leading into discovering the hound has as much hp as a friggin mountain.
Also, Arya lost her dimension door after she depleted her ki pool to stealth into the city.
And well, this is better than the rest of the episodes. Just let that sink in
Episodes 1 and 2 of the season were written by different writers and despite having no actual combat, the character development in each of these episodes has and still is IMO the best part of this season so far.
Episide 3 was horribly done both in terms of cinemetography, tactics, and plot devices.
Episode 4 was an utter waste with characters seemingly forgetting obvious facts or regressing to past mistakes. (I'm looking at you John)
So that brings us to Episode 5......... Admittedly, not as bad as Episode 4, but it had its problems.
Varys was utterly dumbed down. This is a man who has survived countless schemes and betrayals and yet he suddenly trusts Tyrion to not betray him when he can CLEARLY see Tyrion believes in Danny? This was just lazy writing that really served no purpose in the story. (Although the emotional moment between Tyrion and Varys was good acting from both actors)
Tyrion as well appears to be have been dumbed down. Another character who has survived countless schemes and betrayals and is able to read people like a book, but the writers throw that all out the windows because Tyrion wants to "Pick a person and believe in them.". That is utter garbage and although Tyrion does have a good goodbye scene with Jamie his utter loss for words at Dany going to town on the city has its emotional effect dampened by how easily Tyrion should have seen this happening.
Again with the poor military tactics. As stated above, those scorpions are either utterly super effective or useless as is decided by the writers. The sheer number of scorpions should have at the very least managed to land one good hit on Danny's dragon. Danny's use of the sun and a dive bomb maneuver was actually well done but after that the battle should have swung in the enemies favor.
Danny's descent into madness seemed less meaningful without an emotional catalyst. I agree with the above posters that Missendei should have died this episode and that catalyst could have been what sent Dany over the edge.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Bananaphone
- The Dothraki reveal themselves to be utter scumbags that I always knew they were (and that most people seemed to forget about from the first season).
This is one of those details that a LOT of folks forgot about and the writers went out of their way not to depict. Admittedly in some previous battles Dany has instructed her Dothraki to not rape or kill needlessly but there were several battles across the seas were you can bet your rear the Dothraki were going around raping and pillaging. Dany KNOWS this and has ignored it the entire series save for a few times all for the sake of advancing her own agenda.
Cersei....... gods I hated her character but loved the way she was portrayed...... up until this point. This is a woman who has schemed and betrayed her way into power and as she watches the dragon litterally going to down on the outer walls she goes into denial mode acting like "Everything will be ok." This makes even less sense later on when she tells Jamie "I want our child to live." Then RUN your stupid woman. You can see the writing on the walls and you stay for what? Because you are sad you are now losing the power you worked so hard for? Boo hoo. To top it off, I agree that Cersei's death was anticlamactic and while it did play into the prophecy I really really wanted to see her suffer at the end.
Jamie...... as with a lot of characters this season. Any character development or common sense was discarded in favor of catoring to easy plot moments. Jamies decision to return when he learned his sister had killed a dragon and captures Missendei makes NO SENSE. He litterally KNEW Danny was going to march on King's Landing and that his sister would likely die but he decides "Screw it.... I fought an army of zombies and now I'm gonna sleep with the one woman besides Cersei I have feelings for." If he had left right after the battle with the Night King it would have at least made more sense honestly.
Tyrion and Varys moment before Varys death. Good acting, bad plot.
Tyrion and Jamie's goodbye scene. Again, good acting but bad plot. (<--- Tyrion is going to get found out for this one somehow)
Hound and Arya's final goodbye. Again, great acting and good scene.
Hound vs Clegane fight. Best part of the episode and utterly fulfilling watching Sandor just start laughing like a madman before hurling him and his brother off the side.
Jamie and Cersei's death scene. Admittedly I wanted Cersei to suffer and hated how they had Jamie pull a 180 and go back to her, but darn it from a cinematic standpoint alone the scene was a touching one when you somehow suspend all the messed up things both of them have done. (Ironically it made me think of Kit Harrington's last scene in the Pompei movie)
Arya watching it all go to hell. Arya has been through a LOT but this was a new level for her. Assassins, zombies, and now a Vietnam napalm exploding city with charred corpses everywhere. It really makes you wonder if Arya might try to kill Danny in the next episode. (Or will it be John Snow?)
The only right any being has from birth is the right to fight for his wants, for his needs, and for his very survival. There are no god given rights, only the unquestionable law of nature for the strong to survive.
[*]This is one of those details that a LOT of folks forgot about and the writers went out of their way not to depict. Admittedly in some previous battles Dany has instructed her Dothraki to not rape or kill needlessly but there were several battles across the seas were you can bet your rear the Dothraki were going around raping and pillaging. Dany KNOWS this and has ignored it the entire series save for a few times all for the sake of advancing her own agenda.
You bring up a lot of good points, and this one in particular. Looking back across the series, Dany's foreshadowing as the Mad Queen has been built up for quite a while now, even a bit...subtle, in doing so. People are suddenly like "huh? She needs more time to flesh out the mad queen!" but it's like no - she's always been that way. If you look back at her from Season 2 onwards, she's been a really ruthless, violent tyrant who has pulled the wool over most viewers eyes by a) starting off as a pretty female victim and, more importantly, b) hidden behind a number of benevolent actions and a "woman of the people" persona.
But, we've waited 8 years for this:
8 years of Cesei as the villain and some rocks fall on her.
Danny has always been a little cold, and it only got worse when she got her dragons. She looked on silently as her brother died, she routinely burned people alive, she crucified people, she upended whole civilizations and then bailed on them, she basically flittered around doing whatever carnage she wanted and hid behind 'for the good of the people', she was a tyrant in everything but name.
In fact their were more times that could have gone a lot worse but she was pulled up by people around her and the second she breaks connections with them (she stopped trusting Tyrion, she thinks jon betrayed her) and suddenly she's flying around murdering entirely cities.
I know a few people personally who are surprised by her sudden change but personally she's always been tyrannical and power hungry and i'm not even a little surprised it turned out this way. If anything the only thing i'm disappointed by is that people could argue that its justified she might at this way because she lost her dragons, she lost her armies, she lost her est friend, she feels betrayed by people...
But a lot of those are her own fault and to pretend its justification is cheap. She's always been right on the edge of crazy. At first she had no power, so she was cold and calculating. As she grew in power, she became more brazen and controlling but always argued it was for some greater good (which always seemed to be whatever she wanted).
Basically any time she got more power she became worse. First the dothraki, then the dragons start being a power, then the unsullied, every stage she became more demanding and aggressive.
I am in the minority for actually liking this episode. I feel that it did provide some decent pay-off. People forget that GoT is supposed to be more true to life-- people dying unexpectedly and so forth-- but part of true to life is people making irrational decisions and dying before they can be redeemed. Not that I didn't have my issues-- the ballistae, the suddenly effective dragon which has been fairly weak until now, and primarily the pacing of the last two seasons-- but all in all I think it was a powerful, effective episode.
I am in the minority for actually liking this episode.
I liked it too, quite a bit. I have some problems with the Daenerys storyline, but they boil down to the overall gender issues (and other issues - with Grey Worm in the mix, there are unfortunate aspects of there being women and nonwhite people on one side, and rational, moral, self-controlled white men on the other side).
But those are about the advisability of building this storyline across the whole of the books and the show, not the specifics of whether it was done well in this particular episode. As plotting and character, this is good stuff. This development was all well set up in previous seasons, and Emilia Clarke continues to do a great job playing the relevant emotions.. The most I would say on execution is that it was a little too rushed and would have been better with a couple of episodes more to breathe and trace it in detail. I regret it - it’s tragic. But that’s not the same as saying that it’s bad drama.
Even some of those issues that I do have with Daenerys’ storyline may be compensated for by the last episode. I think it’s fairly clear that Daenerys is the anti-Ned: he was a decent and honorable idiot, and was poorly suited for leadership because he had completely internalized an unbreakable code. She goes too far in the other direction: she’s too willing to do what needs to be done, and so doesn’t have the brakes to stop her when it doesn’t actually need to be done. The thing is, Ned=Jon, and I don’t entirely trust the writers to remember that next episode. But if they do, I’ll forgive a lot.
Also, I really like that we saw a depiction of premodern warfare (OK, with a dragon) that focused on the horrors of the sack of a city. Far too often, in fantasy, everything is about pitched battles or assaults and sieges that don’t take the city, and there’s a prettifying dimension to that.