Why is it important that every character get a resolved plot arc

It has definitely changed a lot from season one to now, and that’s fine. The writers have an impossible task of trying to satisfy everyone with how they end this, and I don’t envy them.

Have to disagree. If they went out of their way while everyone was out and everywhere to resolve things where they didn’t make sense that’s one thing.

This is the final night of calm before the Winter that has been coming since season 1 episode 1.

Almost ten years in the making. These characters have been through hell and they get to spend one final night in front of a fire together. Most have battled one another at one point. Yet here they are all. Pretty much expecting to die.

Thought the episode was great and was one of my favorites. Now any of their deaths are going to be that much more paintful next week.

It doesn’t serve the overall story and it’s not important. It’s actually a distraction.

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I don't find it's quality to have changed dramatically, but the very essence of the story is 100% counter to the first 4 seasons or so

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I don’t find that an unreasonable critique, but I do think that the stakes ARE different simply because the world is different now.

There isn’t an all out war raging through the Seven Kingdoms anymore. There isn’t the plotting and backstabbing (literally) going on because the board was reset after years of those “random, viscous violence of wartime”.


This isn’t a story about a border war or a battle for a throne anymore. It’s about the very survival of the human race.

All of the warring factions have come together to stand against the ultimate supernatural foe.

I don’t that find the long awaited reunions and resolutions are unrealistic given the new enemy and danger they are all being forced to confront.


Just in the past two seasons we’ve seen characters like Littlefinger, Ramsey, Rickon, Margery, Loras, The High Sparrow, Tommen, and even Viserion, face the ultimate stakes. The destruction of The Sept was the most shocking and unexpected event in the entire series other than perhaps The Red Wedding.


Having everyone, other than the dragon, survive the trip beyond the wall and Jamie and Bronn surviving the dragon attack may have felt like the stakes were less “realistic” than we’ve seen in the past, but I don’t think that really changed the “essence” of the story for me.

The shocking deaths were never in the battle sequences, but in the political maneuvering off of the battlefield. Ned, Robert, Robb, Cat, Tywin, and even Oberyn didn’t die on a battlefield. That hasn’t been what the show was.



That said, I fully expect many many of the characters to die next week. On the battlefield, which I think may actually change the essence of the show more than anything we’ve seen the past two episodes.

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they'll pull the "it is entertainment and it entertained me!" line. it's a classic for bad popcorn movies being defended

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Sure.

It’s like the reaction to the last Star Wars movies.

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Almost ten years in the making. These characters have been through hell and they get to spend one final night in front of a fire together

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This is the exact type of thing that would never happen in the novels or in the first half of the show. Characters never had a "final night around the fire". They might booze up in an inn between wars, never knowing who was liable to put a dagger in their back at the next town. They killed each other over sleights both real and imagined, a dirty word, a cheat at cards, dibs on a whore. Reflection and respite were for Maesters and children.

This used to be a show where Jamie would never make it to Winterfell because his horse would step in a hole, toss him out the saddle and break his leg, and he'd be robbed and murdered in the middle of nowhere by no one of consequence.

Acts of valor were written only by the winners and were largely a thing of legend. But you can 100% see a half dozen heroic last stands and valiant sacrifices on the horizon. I'm not saying it's worse, but it is very, very different.

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I don't find it's quality to have changed dramatically, but the very essence of the story is 100% counter to the first 4 seasons or so, yet people act shocked that some viewers would be disappointed by this.

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1st 4 seasons are all-time television material

Everything afterwards is airport bookstore fantasy schlock

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Missandei and Grey Worm

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That may be the least essential plot line in the entire series.

It also struck me last night, GW doesn’t look the least bit tough. You’ve got all these other characters who look like fighters, and then you’ve got him.

Odd casting.

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Thought the episode was great and was one of my favorites. Now any of their deaths are going to be that much more paintful next week.

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I am very mixed on the episode and the last couple of seasons really.

On the one hand, I feel like this should have gone 3 more seasons, flushing everything out like it did for the first 5 or so. On the other, crowding everything into fewer episodes raises the intensity and urgency of everything going on.

I think I'm leaning towards the second hand, and enjoying the calm before the storm aspect and the "ride" so to say. Having said that, I completely understand the group who doesn't know why we need to have every single conflict of the past brought back up and slapped in our faces. Arya/the Hound, Sansa/Theon, Theon/Bran etc all could just avoid each other, and there is no 'need' for interaction among them.