I never thought my first Tumblr post in like 200 years would be about Game of Thrones of all shows, but here I am. I just have so many thoughts about this episode that I have been marinading in over the last day and I need to express them ughhh.
1. I saw this suggestion on Reddit and tbh I 100% agree with it - Davos should have been the one running through King’s Landing instead of Arya. At the very least, if they so badly wanted to set up Arya to kill Daenerys, have Davos encounter her, then get split up again and then focus on her. It creates more suspense to have Ser “I’ve never been much of a fighter” Davos in there, rather than Arya, who - let’s face it - has pretty much been guaranteed to survive, if ever there was such a thing in this show. And Davos was from Flea Bottom, can you imagine the emotional impact? (Also Liam Cunningham would have some good material to show his acting chops for the first time in seasons)
2. Speaking of emotional impact...Daenerys has never ever expressed any kind of emotional connection to the Red Keep? I’m not gonna discuss whether or not she should have become mad at all, because honestly it seems like their minds were completely set on it. But even so it could’ve and should’ve been done better. The way it was done was so RANDOM. If I recall, Daenerys has never held any sentiment towards the Red Keep or the fact that it was built by her ancestors. Why would seeing it be her trigger? (PS...D&D...if you had to tell us that reasoning in the aftershow...you didn’t do ya damn job. Show don’t tell????? Aka the first lesson of Writing 101?????) It would’ve made far more sense for Rhaegal to have been just injured at Dragonstone, then died at KL. Then Daenerys could have snapped at the sight of her child’s body, rather than the Red Keep.
3. Or even better, flesh out her entire “descent” a bit more. When she’s locked in her room after Missandei dies, show that. There’s a great still going around of her in that no makeup, dark circles and totally haggard state. I think the photo is brilliant, Emilia really gets across that this is a very shattered Dany, but how much time did it get in the show? A few seconds? Emilia did such a great job in the scene while the bells were ringing, they should’ve given her a similar scene alone in her room, and let Emilia do what she does and portray that Dany might actually cross some serious lines.
Maybe don’t have her burn all of King’s Landing the day of the battle. Maybe she just goes for the Red Keep - killing Cersei and all her human shields. Maybe even a little spillover into the streets. Something that was, technically, planned for, but dark enough to kickstart their Mad Queen thing and cause turmoil for Jon, Tyrion et al. Then, in the aftermath, amongst her remaining advisors or even walking through the city streets, show Dany’s increasing paranoia like in the dining hall scene of 8x04. Have her grow increasingly suspicious of rebellions. Then she still enacts the writers’ whole Mad Queen burning down KL plot, but so much less random and rushed. And yes, it WAS rushed. Being ruthless towards her enemies and acknowledging she acknowledging she could have to take cities with fire and blood during war, IS NOT the same as violating a surrender and killing hundreds of thousands of innocent people who wouldn’t be able to do a thing against her. It’s like she went from being a bit fond of tequila, to getting meth-ed up on the daily, within the space of 1 week.
4. “It’s supposed to be random and rushed!” they cry. “That’s the point! There’s no logic to her madness, that’s what makes it mad!” NAH. Big nope. I can’t remember if it was discussed in the show, but my understanding was that not even the Mad King just woke up and snapped one day. He started out as a decent enough king, but grew increasingly paranoid and fearful. And since everyone is justifying Dany’s madness by saying “her father was mad too! It’s in her genes!” then I think at least do a similar arc. In fact Dany’s madness would still be pretty rushed compared to Aerys, who was commonly known as mad for years but was still kinda tolerated until burning-the-Starks-alive happened.
5. Jaime. Fricking. Lannister. What a mess. What a mess. Back when I first started watching GoT, one of the first interviews I watched had of one of the show runners or writers or someone (it was years ago okay I’m sorry I can’t remember) was asked why they thought people liked the show so much. Their answer went along the lines of: “Westeros is a world undergoing huge changes and upheaval, a bit like our own world, and I think people l really relate to that.” Ok, so the place Westeros isn’t the same as the characters living in it, but come on - you’re really gonna undercut your own self-professed basis of the show by having a hugely redeemed character suddenly regress to what he was in the beginning? You really did that? For what? Shock value? To be edgy edgelords? Jamie just spent 8x04 talking down Bronn from killing him on Cersei’s orders. He’s really gonna have no problem with that? I get that they want their show to be “not like other shows”. But at the end of the day, it IS a show, they are telling a story. And Jaime’s choice did not fit in narratively.
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