Everyone on here who said NK was secondary and Cersei is the main villain, is it Dany now?

Pretty obvious the WW were to level the playing field to create a closely contested sacking of King’s Landing dude.

NK and Cercei got 7 seasons of build up as a villain

Fits in so well with this season that the main villain would end up Dany whose turn gets introduced in the second to last episode of the series

quote:

---

NK and Cercei got 7 seasons of build up as a villain

Fits in so well with this season that the main villain would end up Dany whose turn gets introduced in the second to last episode of the series

---

while symbolic, Dany's acts should effectively break up the 7 kingdoms

we know the North isn't joining and i doubt Dorne does

sweet Robyn is not going to frick with them either, unless he wants revenge on Sansa for that slap

there aren't kingdoms in the Reach, River Lands, or the Storm Lands anymore, also

*ETA: i guess under Dany, Gendry is the ruler of the Storm Lands so scratch that. she's got the Storm Lands and the Iron Isles

oh yeah. nothing in the Westerlands, either

quote:

---

but what are they gonna do?

---

John is obviously going to kill her, and then there won't be a "Seven Kingdoms" (which is why I included the Storm Lands earlier, b/c Gendry won't be legitimized if Dany doesn't remain ruler)

quote:

---

and some enormous Essos fleet lands to take over the completely wrecked Westeros continent.

---

Let me put it this way.

In the books, between lavish descriptions of feasts and a few rapes thrown in here and there, the Fat Man would have planted the seeds for Dany to be the one true villain undergoing a slow mental breakdown.

The problem is El Lardo effectively stopped writing the books about a decade ago. Either he finished them and is waiting to see if his ideas sink, or he's been gorging himself on fatty foods waiting for his call to Writer's Heaven.

Which gives us the show directors. With everything they have to cover for the last two seasons, without a book to guide them and just GRRM mumbling something about do this and see if you can make some more of the actresses get nekkid, they sort of focused on getting to the finish line.

So Dany's slow nervous breakdown isn't given the time it needs to resonate with the audience.

Would it have been better if they had been showcasing Dany going bonkers for the last two seasons? Well, yes, and no.

The problem with a late game villain switch is that you spent oh my Jesus amount of time setting up certain bad guys only to have a "haha surprise" switch. It just isn't going to carry the same ummph with the audience.

The original Star Wars built up the Emperor as the main villain and Vader as his terrifying henchmen. Let us change that to, in the final movie, actually in the final 30 minutes of that movie, they suddenly say "surprise! It was actually Princess Leia who was the real main villain!"

Do you think folks would have quite so much love for the original series they'd tolerate the fairly crappy movies they've gotten since?

Its a bait and switch and there is a good reason people get annoyed about it.

You can be too unpredictable for your own good.

Now, I know some of you will start caterwauling now, claiming I am upset that a feminist hero was turned into the villain. I could give a flying frick up a running rat's a-hole. Dany, Cersei, Ice Zombie King, or a renegade Toto from the Wizard of OZ here to frick things up... fine. Set it up and build it up.

GRRM and the show runners failed to do that. If you spend 6 books setting up certain villains and then make a last second switch you deserve the scorn you will get.