One thing I lamented in previous seasons (especially season 5) was how long it took for things to happen. But starting in season 6, with the number of episodes dwindling and having exceeded the storylines of the books, the producers started to put the pedal to the metal. All of the sudden Danerys could round up a fleet of ships and transport an entire army across the sea to Westeros in the blink of an eye. I mean in the first couple of seasons it took people several episodes just to get from Winterfell in the north to King's Landing in the south. And Danerys had been wandering around the west like Moses for almost 6 fucking years. Now all the sudden she can conveniently pack up and fly across the sea on her dragon.
Season 7 then began to really exaggerate that. The penultimate episode was probably the worst offender as Jon Snow and a fellowship go past the wall to round up a zombie. In prior seasons this would have taken an entire season or at least half of one. But in this episode they go beyond the wall, find the zombie army, get stuck in the middle of some ice, have one guy run all the way back to the wall, then have the guys on the wall send a raven with a message to Danerys, and then have Danerys show up with her dragons like choppers in a war zone. It was all pretty ludicrous.
So while previous seasons I could complain they were too slow, this one I complain everything is moving too fast. It's like the people of Westeros all the sudden figured out supersonic engines and bullet trains. Like the episode I mentioned, this allows for characters who were far apart to arrive just in the nick of time to lend a hand or provide critical information. Like at the end of the season when Sam arrives at Winterfell just in time to tell Brandon that Jon is the rightful king of Westeros.
It makes it a little difficult to predict what will happen in Season 8, whenever it airs. With the Night King and his zombie army breaking through The Wall, are they going to move like a bullet train and be at Winterfell's gates in the first episode, or are they going to move at a more traditional pace to give Jon, Danerys, and everyone else time to arrive? I really don't know, but you have to think it'd be pretty easy for the Night King to just fly ahead and use his zombie dragon to turn Winterfell into a pile of rubble (again.)
It is funny then how you think you want something and when you get it, it doesn't really satisfy you. I thought after season 5 I wanted things to move along and now everything is happening so fast it's hard to keep up. That's life for you.
Anyone reading this has probably A) Seen the show or B) Never watched it so I don't really feel like going into much more about it. Let me just finish with my wish list for Season 8:
- Theon "Reek" Greyjoy dies saving his sister. And stopping Cersei's mercenary army from reaching Westeros in the process. And so Reek finally shows some courage and dies a hero's death and we don't have to see him anymore. (Though it was pretty funny in the last episode when the guy he was fighting kicked him between the legs like three times and he just smiles like, "I ain't got nothing there no more, fool!")
- The Hound finally kills his brother. They faced each other in the finale of season 7 and at some point you have to think the Hound will finally take out the Mountain, his now-undead brother serving Cersei Lannister. Maybe once the White Walkers are dead and everyone goes after Cersei they can have a throwdown--if Arya Stark doesn't kill the Hound first.
- Arya and Sansa do...something. I actually have no idea what I really want either of them to do. It was cool that they tricked Littlefinger and took him out, but I really have no idea what else they can do with the zombie army bearing down on them. If they became zombies I wouldn't really give a shit.
- Some main characters become zombies. You have to make at least a couple of token main characters into zombies at some point. I really don't know who but like The Walking Dead just about anyone is fair game, especially in the last season.
- Brandon and the Night King have a warg-off. Now that Brandon has all this mystical psychic bullshit going on, he needs to have a throwdown with the zombie army's leader, the Night King. And if they didn't already, tell us who the Night King is and how he came to start the whole zombie army thing.
- Dragonfight! You have a zombie dragon and two non-zombie dragons so at some point we need a fight. And the one Danerys doesn't ride will die because it's the spare. I mean the only other reason to have two dragons is for Danerys to ride one and Jon the other.
- Tyrion is the Last Lannister Standing. Since the rest of his family has shit on him pretty much the entire series it would be pretty awesome if Tyrion is the last of the Lannisters at the end. And he could let Bron have Castelly Rock while he remains Hand for whoever sits on the Iron Throne.
- Someone good should sit on the Iron Throne. After 8 years let's not end the series on a bummer with Cersei on the Iron Throne or the Night King turning everyone into zombies or shit like that. It should be Jon or Danerys, which is why it probably won't be, but at least someone who isn't evil or shitty, please. They don't have to go all LOTR with the end but it'd be nice if good defeats evil and winter ends with a new king or queen who isn't fucking awful. I'm just saying. My dark horse candidate: Sam the big fat guy. I mean he is the head of the Tarley house or whatever now technically, isn't he? So if the other families get barbecued or zombified he has a shot, right? And he's GRR Martin's avatar, so there you go.
The writers kind of painted themselves into a corner now as far as Jon's love life goes. We find out Danerys is his cousin or whatever just as they finally get around to fucking. And the only other women he could hook up with are his sisters, Brienne, or Cersei Lannister. There are no good cards in that hand at all. Well done, producers! So either Jon isn't going to end up with anyone or he's going to die--again. And, hey, what happened to that witch who brought him back to life? She was in like one episode just standing around out of sight. Maybe she can get the "Lord of Light" to help with the zombies or something.
If you're wondering by now, I'm 90% serious about everything in this post, which is pretty much maximum seriousness for any post on this blog.
5 comments:
I don't think that Tyrion is a Lannister. I think he's a Targaryen. That's hinted at when he has a moment with the dragons in a prior season (under Mereen). As the story goes, Tywin couldn't prove that Tyrion wasn't his so he accepted him as a son. But his wife had been raped by the Mad King, so technically, Tyrion could be the heir and not Jon.
I wonder if Jon has powers he's unaware of since he was once technically dead. Perhaps this will come into play if he ever confronts the leader of the dead army.
I would love for Tyrion to sit on the Iron Throne but it doesn't seem that plausible for everyone to rally to him.
That would be cool.
A few of those things you wrote will come to pass (if the internet spoilers are correct)...others will not...what I heard based on leaked scripts will provide a satisfying end to the series, although not a happy one for many. ;P
I was telling Emily the other day exactly what you wrote about how it used to take forever to do something or go somewhere and now they can cross the map in seconds, although there was that line in the last episode that it would take a fortnight to get back to Winterfell...so I guess they just cut out the unnecessary walking/riding. imagine that first LotR movie without all that boring walking lol. Yeah, that dragon rescue was like a Vietnam movie rescue. "Everyone get to the choppahhs" as Arnold would say lol
My biggest wonder with season 8 is..is there still going to be any meaningful story or is it just going to be battle after battle? Battle at winterfell in episode 1, fall back to the next place, fall back from there, fall back again, fall back to king's landing, final battle...with a little bit of story wrap up at the end.
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