[sugurugetos]

maekar's fatal hit on baelor landing after aerion had already yielded to dunk and withdrawn his accusation

[jakecockley]

“my brother’s mace, most like. he’s strong.”

[asystolle]

A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms 1.05 - In the Name of the Mother

[chrishayley]

A KNIGHT OF THE SEVEN KINGDOMS 1.05 - In The Name of The Mother

[kayime]

[redscrawl]

no i will not make separate blogs for my fandoms, everyone who follows me must experience ALL my insanity

[3y3-see-you]

[lyinginthesnow]

i like to entertain myself by thinking about Bad Succession -> (alternate reality succession where it sucks). constant sepia-tinted flashbacks to traumatic childhood memories, with echoey abusive dad dialogue. post-car accident kendall is haunted by a hallucination of the waiter everywhere he goes. shiv has girlboss moments where she triumphs against misogynistic men and they learn not to underestimate women. once you get started you can’t stop.. the ideas are endless. they would try to make kendall into a rebellious bad boy type with personal demons. he would have a scene where he stares into a cracked mirror to represent his fractured psyche

[wherewolf]

the responses i’ve seen to shiv’s ending seem very quick to write her off as just another sad victim of the cycle, which isn’t without truth BUT!!! that is not even remotely the summation of shiv’s story.

i don’t think she votes yes to “save kendall” or to try to finally set her brothers free. and i don’t think her main concern was that ken was becoming their dad. she absolutely noticed and didn’t love it, but that was not her motivation in betraying him. she was thinking about herself.

it’s tempting to make a martyr out of her as she is the only female child and we see her suffer the onslaught of misogyny that comes with that. but to make her into a saintlike figure who got beat takes away the power and intelligence behind her decision.

at this point she’s stuck between two non ideal choices, but she recognizes that they have accidentally made her the single most important player in the game. because while she can’t have the outcome she’d prefer, she has the power to decide the fates of everyone else. the written off lone woman now holds in her hands the fate of every man in her life.

so she thinks about the long term benefits of both options and realizes that one side leaves her completely without any leverage.

her brothers have proven to her multiple times in the last few days alone that they will cut her out and walk all over her the first chance they get. siding with them leaves her nothing to bargain with. she would just have to hope that ken would actually take care of her. and that level of vulnerability is not only unacceptable to her, it’s stupid. and shiv fuckin roy is not stupid.

so she thinks about the other side and about what she actually wants for her life. and against her better judgment, it’s becomes unfortunately clear that she wants tom. the way she wants him is not altogether loving or even good but it is necessary to her. she sees relationships as having winners and losers and she chose this man specifically so that she could be confident in her ability to win. except now he’s grown some balls and made himself unavailable to her.

she may not like the way her husband is evolving but she already placed her bets on him, so she’s sure as hell not losing to him now. there’s also a part of her that feels intrigued by this new man she’s married to. it’s interesting to have a sparring partner in him instead of having to looking for excitement outside of their marriage.

so for maybe the first time ever, she processes what tom has said to her and thinks about what he actually wants.

he needs her to prove that she cares. he needs to know that she is capable of sacrifice. if she can’t find it within herself to do this for him, then she will lose him, and by extension, she will lose.

siding with tom gives her the opportunity to once and for all make a grand-stand gesture of love, but more importantly, it creates leverage for her. never again will he be able to hold the moral high ground over her head. never again can he say she doesn’t love him. never again can he call her selfish or uncaring. above all, he can never betray her again, because she just removed all of his moral justification for turning on her. he doesn’t realize it yet, but she’s just taken back all the power in their relationship. just in a more subtle way than she’s used to operating.

and just like that, she has the ceo of a multi billion dollar company in her pocket, while situating herself as the only descendant of logan roy to still be playing the game, having removed her brothers from the equation permanently. she may still be far from the top but she’s creating a path for herself to climb.

so yes, she’ll let tom play king for a day, and she’ll have his baby and say “congratulations,” and play the gracious wife, but tomorrow is a new day with lots of room to maneuver. and when her husband puts out his hand, she’ll place her own on top. but she won’t grasp it because she doesn’t need to.

[theburialofstrawberries]

The most tragic thing this episode to me is Kendall recanting his confession. That was the one real thing he’d offered his siblings, and he took it back, and now he can’t un-take it back. And they’d given him something real in return, the best version of tenderness they could muster, and now that’s gone too. Kendall was never going to be CEO, but maybe he could’ve been a less lonely man, less apart from the world. (Or maybe not, the trick to tragedies is they always seem avoidable and inevitable at the same time.) Kendall, alone, Colin trailing behind him…he did get to be his dad in the end 

[softlyher]

crazy to me that a decent chunk of people hated the finale because it just makes so much sense to me dramaturgically. like especially the later half. kendall inflicting pain and comfort to roman at the same time, pressing romans fresh wound into him as he hugs him. roman falling into place because thats the only form of comfort he can stomach. shiv seeing, once again, roman fold under the command of violent older family member, seeing kendall say "thats fucking right" after roman votes against the gojo deal in the same way logan would when roman complied to his demands. shiv being confronted with seeing her older brother turn into her father, and reconsidering everything. and kendall only digs his hole deeper, turning vile and mean. when you grow up with a mean man in your house there's always one there even if hes gone. shiv confronting kendall about the waiter and he denies it even happened. says it wasnt real. no real person involved. kendall again using violence towarda roman as a motivator but this time its different and he fights back because nothing fucking matters. shiv votes for the deal and kendall is once again too late to do anything. its already been done. tom sucking the biggest dick in every room.

[strangesmallbard]

god and how FUCKED is it that the succession ultimately hinged on shiv’s choice, but it was actually no choice at all. your brother (empty husk groomed for power his whole life) or your husband (empty husk who craved power his whole life). for five minutes she had the most power in the room, but it was actually nothing.

[adampvrrish]

logan's mausoleum having space for all of their bodies to be entombed.. they'll all be trapped forever in a room with an angry man

[visenyaism]

….unwell

[goldcrescent]

Logan having had one last chance to see his family all together at Connor’s wedding but deciding to skip it for a business deal is such a delicious bookend. His last day on earth! Roman and Connor still holding out their hands please dad please just come. Even after all the frustration boiled over and they’d all said their piece and held their ground it all ended right where it started. And the choice to have no shots of his face as he was dying as a representation of the truest version of Logan the children knew. A faceless man an insurmountable distance away, unresponsive to any amount of crying or cursing or pleading. The memory of the last time they were all together will be of him turning his back.

[finnicksannie]

Oh there is something so deeply and horrendously ironic about the fact that Shiv couldn’t be CEO. She couldn’t inherit her father’s kingdom. Her husband had to. The only way she can have it is by being a wife and a mother. Because that’s the only way a woman can have any power in the world her father created.

[suitbf]

final succession scene