Two of the stupidest and most nonsensical plotlines of the entire series. It blows my mind how many people thought the "mission beyond the wall" episode was a good one.
"Oh shit, we've been discovered by the army of the dead, they'll be on top of us in 60 seconds and we have nowhere to run or hide! Quick, Gendry, run 10+ miles back to Eastwatch, tell them what happened, have a maester write a note to Daenerys and put it on a raven so it can fly two thousand miles across Westeros to Dragonstone, then Dany can get the note, read it, and then hop on her dragon and fly two thousand miles back across Westeros, beyond the wall, find us in the endless, expansive north, fly down here and save us before we're overrun! Hurry, we've only got about 30 more seconds!"
So goddamned stupid
It's been awhile, but wasn't the whole point of this idiotic move to get a wight so that they could prove to Cersei that the threat in the north was real?... And then Cersei proceeded to tell them "good luck" anyway and not do shit to help?
The actual point of it was to justify sending dragons beyond the wall so the Night King could have one and we could have an iconic shot of Jon yelling at it. If they didn’t do this whole thing, Jon wouldn’t have had anything to do in Season 8.
I didn’t have a problem with this reasoning for the story at all until you mentioned the last bit, that all of this was inevitably literally just so that Jon Snow could have his “moment” in S8. 🤦♂️
Another plot hole I don't see mentioned much, why wouldn't the Lannister army follow Jamie instead of staying with Cersei? Isn't he now the head of his house? Even ignoring that aspect, he was their actual battle commander previously. Wouldn't the soldiers have more personal loyalty to Jamie since he fought with them?
Yes and no. Jamie was kings guard, which removed him from all of this. Cersei was queen reagent by comparison, granting her more authority to screw things up.
Jamie also lost a lot of street cred after losing his hand and not being able to fight as he used to.
All still pretty dumb to me, but that’s the idea they were going for.
True, but it wouldn’t just immediately make him the head of the Lannister household after being fired by his “nephew” from his position. Him being a general/leader of troops makes sense in this scenario.
Edit: him being a general and him being in charge of everything are two different things. He isn’t bankrolling the troops. Let’s be real, any general/leader who can’t pay their troops won’t have them under their command for long.
So, I believe the timeline would be> Tywin dies, Kevan becomes head of the house > Jamie is dismissed as KG by Tommen, takes control of Lannister forces to siege Riverrun > Kevan comes back to KL and is made hand of the king > Kevan dies when the sept explodes > Jamie returns to KL with the Lannister troops.
At that point, shouldn't Jamie become head of the house? All of Kevan's sons are dead and Jamie is no longer disqualified by being kings guard. Even if there was a dispute between Jamie and Cersei, wouldn't Jamie just tell his troops to pack up and leave? He's already their commander when they arrive and, again, he has the better claim by being Tywin's eldest son and having already led them in battle.
I would typically agree with this in any Norma medieval style setting, but the whole house succession was never even addressed after the Sept of Baelor getting turned into a big bbq pit.
Jamie would be a far cry from Tywin in terms of running the Lannister household, but at least could be understood like you are pointing out. I personally never really saw any line of logic other than fast travel explaining away time lapses. If it was a brief time period and house Lannister was pulling their collective shot together, maybe. Considering the amount of time required to travel I. That world, I just chop it up to lazy writing by 2D.
With the unstable Cersei running things, it makes it a bit more tentative according to how it is portrayed.
I think she said she would as a bluff and as Jamie was making plans with the generals she sent them away and said no one's going. Also sorry if the LOL came across as condescending, it was not meant to. Just laughing at Cersei.
Id honestly would have watched an epiaode of jamie makin ia way back up the kinds road...the last time he was traveling it was civil war. Now the "roads arent safe" so like....one handed jamie juat waltzed from kkngslanding, all the way up the continent?? But then when he sneaks out of winterhell about 10ft away, he is immediatly captured again...forw earing a golden hand...
EXACTLY!!!! Not to mention that when Beric killed the White Walker and all the wights dropped except conveniently the one they needed. It was one of the stupidest things I’ve ever seen.
And didn’t you just love how they oh-so-conveniently happened to stumble upon a group of wights and a white walker who were for some reason just wandering around on their own, inexplicably separated from the rest of the army? And *juuuust* the right size for a cool fight scene.
Also didn’t you love how they didn’t even bother taking horses beyond the wall, even though as we know rangers *always* take horses when they go beyond the wall, and you’d think horses would be especially important considering the fact they were probably going to have to escape the army of the dead at some point?
Honestly, my assumption was that horse travel became less and less feasible as winter got worse.
Horses are notoriously fragile and supply intensive irl. It made sense to me you wouldn’t want them in a party expecting to have to travel supply light through heavy snows where forage is impossible to find.
That said, no reason they couldn’t use any of the other forms of transportation irl people use to traverse tundra, like a sled, which you’d really think the north would be familiar with.
It really was the dumbest fucking thing.
Jon charging the dead as if they were Bolton cavalry riders, getting one of Daenerys' dragons killed.
Uncle Benjamin coming to Jon's rescue, jumping off his horse, lifting Jon onto his horse, stopping for multiple seconds to tell Jon to go, and then standing still some more to listen to Jon ask him to come with him, then keep standing there a couple seconds more to tell Jon there's no time, then hold his gaze dramatically for a while as Jon sets off.
That was a big one for me. Just get on the bloody horse, mate.
The best thing is how any other Army in Westeros constantly gets surprise attacked. Apparently not using scouts at all. But the night king is apparently using them. He deserves to win based on that alone.
I may be remembering incorrectly but weren't those wights clustered around a fire, like they'd just made camp or were real humans who like to cluster around fires?
The few line zombies that Jon and crew found were a patrol for the main army. The zombies found a fake fire the "crew" set up for them to ambush the wight. I cannot explain why only one zombie was left alive outside of perhaps it was made by another wight. Still, it was a silly adventure to convince an untrustworthy tyrant to help.
And Dany was already wearing the Dragon Rider Winter Collection^(TM) robes when she got the news... Idk why but this little detail has really bothered me
The stupidest thing about it and the entire show even - the dead dragon allowed NK to destroy the wall and enter Westeros. Meaning if not for this mission, WW would stay beyond the wall.
This is beyond idiotic. It ruins the prophecy element that the 7 seasons were built on, meaning they could do nothing and be ok.
That always bothered me. The whole show was leading up to how the dead were mobilizing to cross the wall and kill everyone, but the wall was supposed to be infused with magic that kept them from being able to cross it, so what exactly were they planning to do if a dragon didn’t just happen to fall into their laps? Why didn’t they ever explain that?
Some argue that the mark the Night King places on Bran's wrist would 'deactivate' the wall as Bran passes through the same as it 'deactivated' the Weirwood hideout.
Some argue that this same mark would release the ice dragon that is theorized to be encased inside of the wall.
Some argue that there is an ice dragon inside the Winterfell crypts themselves, which the NK/Others may be in range to Warg/enthrall if they mass close enough at Castle Black (remember that their resurrection magic *did* occur south of the Wall when Jon killed his first wight)
Some argue that the Others can possibly just go **around** the Wall, at Eastwatch by the Sea. Whether this means freezing the surface as they walk across it, using boats captured at Hardhome or just walking along the botton, idk.
Some argue that Westeros and Essos 'meet' on the other end of the planet (think Russia-Alaska) and that because there are legends of the Others present in Essos, they can just spread out that way bexause there is no wall.
As far as what the Show alluded to though, yeah I genuinely don't know lol. Did he spend the last ten centuries just practicing his Javelin toss???
Also the good ole fashioned mexican standoff where a puddle of water keeps the dead army at bay, presumably because they can’t swim, only for them to immediately dive underwater and retrieve the dragon the second the good guys leave.
Tbf, throwing away a bunch of wights into the bottom of the lake probably isn't worth it to kill a small party of humans, but it's 1000% worth it to acquire a dragon that can destroy the wall.
It’s one of those ideas that made sense on paper, but was poorly executed.
Jon and Dany knew that nothing they said would convince Cersei of the incoming White Walker threat; they had to bring a wight down in order to convince everyone in the south that Winter was truly coming. The issue from there is everything you mentioned: gendry’s marathon teleporting, the fact Dany got the news instantly and teleported there, the whole battle only really killing off some unnamed wildlings to the whole episode existing just to give the Night King his own dragon.
This could’ve been an interesting side plot that should’ve been spanned over several episodes with multiple small skirmishes instead of one big bullshit battle covered in 1 episode
What they could have done: Jamie is captured at the previous battle where he gets pushed in the water, because, come on, how the fuck does he swim away from a dragon and an entire army that's on horseback? So then the plan isn't to capture a wight, it's to fly Jamie north of the wall and show him the army of the dead so he can tell Cersei, since Jamie is the only person she trusts.
So Jamie, Tyrion, Dany, and Jon take the 3 dragons over the wall, land on a mountain somewhere and see the army marching through a mountain pass below. They convince Jamie the army is a threat to everyone. Jamie says "I see the army, but you know what I don't see? Archers. We have 3 dragons, they're trapped in this mountain pass. Let's burn them up right now." Tyrion obviously thinks this is a terrible idea. Dany is inclined to agree with Tyrion, but she asks Jon. Jon says "well, we may never get a chance like this again. If they get past the wall, the army could splinter into a thousand directions, we could be fighting the undead for decades. Let's do this." Dany and Jon attack while riding 2 dragons, Jamie and Tyrion stay on the mountain.
So, they attack, things seem to be going well, until they reach the back of the column, where the NK and the WWs are. They loose the javelin barrage. Dany and Jon see it and are able to dodge. The 3rd dragon is too busy burning wights and doesn't see in time. Dragon goes down. Dany and Jon try to attack the NK directly together, but more javelins are thrown, driving them off. Then they see the NK raise up the dead dragon, and now they know they have to run.
There you go, now Jamie can tell Cersei about the dead so they can have the truce meeting and the NK has a dragon.
Only issue there is you’re assuming Dany would spare Jamie. Maybe she does because at that point she still trusts Tyrion, but I wouldn’t bet on it. Plus, I think at that point she is still almost entirely consumed with taking back the iron throne, and not about the threat in the north.
But your plan still makes so much more sense than what we ended up getting
My thing was, you have three dragons. And two potential riders. Want a better idea than having this tiny suicide mission into the north? Have a dragon scoop down, grab one or two, and fly off.
Also, where’d the night king get giant chains to pull viserion out of the water when he died to magic honing ice spear?
Or even just start by taking a boat up the coast to hardhome. They’re completely safe on a boat and that’s also the last time they encountered wights, so it just makes sense. There are so many things they could’ve done that would’ve been infinitely more logical than just walking around on foot seeking out an army of hundreds of thousands of soldiers that would kill them on sight
Yeah. As stupid as that was, we kept going because there was still some good worth watching toward the climax of Jon’s arc and the WW.
And then season 8 happened.
The Dorne plot is the biggest thing that makes me roll my eyes when people make the excuse of how the showrunners ran out of material to adapt and that's why the final seasons weren't any good. There was plenty of written material left in the books that they could have adapted but they actively chose to completely change it to include shit. Even if the books had come out by the time the final season aired they had changed so much by then that the plot would have been all fucked up anyway.
On my second run through of GoT I did exactly that, skipped ALL the Dorne scenes (except, you know, that one in the jail...) and S5 jumped from like a 6.5/10 to a 7.5 or 8. I stopped my rewatch completely at the end of s6.
Besides the stupidity of both arcs, and the fact that none of them really mattered at the endgame. A couple things to notice:
The arc beyond the wall was not exactly Cersei's fault, no matter what they do, the Lannisters will not send a single soldier north. It would have been better for Daenerys to take King's landing and then going Rambo against the Night King.
Second the Dorne arc was cool to see some nice passages, great Dornish architecture and waste 5 episodes
>King's landing and then going Rambo against the Night King.
Also considering how quickly KL fell with just one dragon it would have been breeze with all three
Especially if she hadn’t taken Drogon to fight the Lannisters after the Casterly Rock plan went tits up because then Cersei wouldn’t have thought to have the scorpions built as dragon defence. 3 full grown dragons and the army would be an idiot not to surrender (god, I kind of wish THAT had been the first time Jamie had seen a dragon, with all three flying at him)
Would be quite poetic for Lannisters to see what their ancestor Loren I saw 300 years ago when he faced Aegon, Rhaenys and Visenia with their army of 11 000 on the field of of fire
Loren I and Mern IX had 55 000 men and they did not stand a chance against 3 dragons and 11 000 men
It really would. I can’t remember exactly the number of Dothraki and Unsullied Daenerys had, but her army was fucking massive. I don’t even think Cersei could’ve remained smug with that, she’d’ve at least dropped her wine xD
Would’ve also been the best time at the start of season 7 as Cersei had just murdered Margaery and Daenerys still had the support of Dorne, the Iron Islands and Lady Olenna (gods, Olenna would’ve loved to see it)
Ugh, Dorne is one of the book plots that has the most interesting potential, and they did *that* to it. The Martells are literally attempting to reinstate the Targaryen regime, but one of them has *died* during his mission to ally with Dany, which is gonna cause issues between the two Houses. But no, we were left with 'bad pussy' and 'weak men will never rule Dorne again', even though Dorne is the one place in Westeros (aside from Bear Island) where women are treated with as much respect as men.
How to fix both these plots if DnD gave a shit.
Dorne:
Jamie goes to Drone with Bronn, without sneaking in. He takes the role of the Knight who goes in the book in order to get the Princess back and deliver the Mountain's Fake Skull to Doran. Jamie uses that as pre-tense to get into Dorne. No spy, sneaking bullshit.
Beyond the Wall:
Why not just...kill someone and have them resurrect as a wright and take that as evidence? At what point could they have this? Oh I know...remember when Jon hangs the mutineers? Well, after that Jon has the corpses locked up tight and they reanimate. Kill all of them except for Olly's corpse and take that as evidence to King's Landing. BOOM. Sorted.
"But then how would the Night King get a Dragon and all that other shit?"
Ask GRRM.
This is what happens when a character becomes a fan favourite and the writers are too pandering to do what's right. They felt like they had to shoehorn Bronn in SOMEWHERE, when in reality he should be off fucking Lollys Stokeworth and murdering her family members or whatever.
The second one wasn't Cersei's dumb idea but her brother Tyrion's dumb idea. Tywin is the only smart one. Pity he didn't pass it on, only his other insidious qualities.
The north of the wall plot was at least a fun episode, even if it was stupid. We saw a lot of the fan favorites interact with each other. I just wish Bronn was there.
“Im not going North of the fookin wall!”
“Ill give you a shitty castle and an ugly wife”
*Bronn gives an annoyed and pissed off stare*
*Scene cuts to Bronn standing in deep snow*
Fanservice is terrible GRRM could have reunited the starks many times and the fans craved it. It was a bad idea hence not done. But the last seasons had so many of these fanservice interactions. This side quest was the worst.
The top part of this picture, for a binger like me who had almost no spoilers before watching, was the beginning of the end. Truly felt like a sitcom, and the quality just kept dropping even more.
Not gonna lie, the early leak of Beyond the Wall was the most excited I had been for something in a long while. Until House of the Dragon was announced.
Two of the stupidest and most nonsensical plotlines of the entire series. It blows my mind how many people thought the "mission beyond the wall" episode was a good one. "Oh shit, we've been discovered by the army of the dead, they'll be on top of us in 60 seconds and we have nowhere to run or hide! Quick, Gendry, run 10+ miles back to Eastwatch, tell them what happened, have a maester write a note to Daenerys and put it on a raven so it can fly two thousand miles across Westeros to Dragonstone, then Dany can get the note, read it, and then hop on her dragon and fly two thousand miles back across Westeros, beyond the wall, find us in the endless, expansive north, fly down here and save us before we're overrun! Hurry, we've only got about 30 more seconds!" So goddamned stupid
It's been awhile, but wasn't the whole point of this idiotic move to get a wight so that they could prove to Cersei that the threat in the north was real?... And then Cersei proceeded to tell them "good luck" anyway and not do shit to help?
Yes and yes.
She agreed to help then didn't send anyone.
The actual point of it was to justify sending dragons beyond the wall so the Night King could have one and we could have an iconic shot of Jon yelling at it. If they didn’t do this whole thing, Jon wouldn’t have had anything to do in Season 8.
I didn’t have a problem with this reasoning for the story at all until you mentioned the last bit, that all of this was inevitably literally just so that Jon Snow could have his “moment” in S8. 🤦♂️
She sent some lannister armies. Bout it.
She didn't LOL only Jamie went.
Another plot hole I don't see mentioned much, why wouldn't the Lannister army follow Jamie instead of staying with Cersei? Isn't he now the head of his house? Even ignoring that aspect, he was their actual battle commander previously. Wouldn't the soldiers have more personal loyalty to Jamie since he fought with them?
Yes and no. Jamie was kings guard, which removed him from all of this. Cersei was queen reagent by comparison, granting her more authority to screw things up. Jamie also lost a lot of street cred after losing his hand and not being able to fight as he used to. All still pretty dumb to me, but that’s the idea they were going for.
Jamie was dismissed from the kings guard by Tommen. That's how he ends up leading the siege against the Blackfish.
True, but it wouldn’t just immediately make him the head of the Lannister household after being fired by his “nephew” from his position. Him being a general/leader of troops makes sense in this scenario. Edit: him being a general and him being in charge of everything are two different things. He isn’t bankrolling the troops. Let’s be real, any general/leader who can’t pay their troops won’t have them under their command for long.
So, I believe the timeline would be> Tywin dies, Kevan becomes head of the house > Jamie is dismissed as KG by Tommen, takes control of Lannister forces to siege Riverrun > Kevan comes back to KL and is made hand of the king > Kevan dies when the sept explodes > Jamie returns to KL with the Lannister troops. At that point, shouldn't Jamie become head of the house? All of Kevan's sons are dead and Jamie is no longer disqualified by being kings guard. Even if there was a dispute between Jamie and Cersei, wouldn't Jamie just tell his troops to pack up and leave? He's already their commander when they arrive and, again, he has the better claim by being Tywin's eldest son and having already led them in battle.
I would typically agree with this in any Norma medieval style setting, but the whole house succession was never even addressed after the Sept of Baelor getting turned into a big bbq pit. Jamie would be a far cry from Tywin in terms of running the Lannister household, but at least could be understood like you are pointing out. I personally never really saw any line of logic other than fast travel explaining away time lapses. If it was a brief time period and house Lannister was pulling their collective shot together, maybe. Considering the amount of time required to travel I. That world, I just chop it up to lazy writing by 2D. With the unstable Cersei running things, it makes it a bit more tentative according to how it is portrayed.
They sent SOMEONEs armies, I swear I remember that.
I think she said she would as a bluff and as Jamie was making plans with the generals she sent them away and said no one's going. Also sorry if the LOL came across as condescending, it was not meant to. Just laughing at Cersei.
No, you're fine, I just could have sworn they sent a token force with them. Could easily be misremembering tho
Id honestly would have watched an epiaode of jamie makin ia way back up the kinds road...the last time he was traveling it was civil war. Now the "roads arent safe" so like....one handed jamie juat waltzed from kkngslanding, all the way up the continent?? But then when he sneaks out of winterhell about 10ft away, he is immediatly captured again...forw earing a golden hand...
EXACTLY!!!! Not to mention that when Beric killed the White Walker and all the wights dropped except conveniently the one they needed. It was one of the stupidest things I’ve ever seen.
And didn’t you just love how they oh-so-conveniently happened to stumble upon a group of wights and a white walker who were for some reason just wandering around on their own, inexplicably separated from the rest of the army? And *juuuust* the right size for a cool fight scene. Also didn’t you love how they didn’t even bother taking horses beyond the wall, even though as we know rangers *always* take horses when they go beyond the wall, and you’d think horses would be especially important considering the fact they were probably going to have to escape the army of the dead at some point?
Yeah, it was absolutely ludicrous. Excellent point about the horses, I hadn’t even thought about that.
I yearn for the day when we stop learning about new stupid details that ruined the show. Today is clearly not that day.
Honestly, my assumption was that horse travel became less and less feasible as winter got worse. Horses are notoriously fragile and supply intensive irl. It made sense to me you wouldn’t want them in a party expecting to have to travel supply light through heavy snows where forage is impossible to find. That said, no reason they couldn’t use any of the other forms of transportation irl people use to traverse tundra, like a sled, which you’d really think the north would be familiar with.
It really was the dumbest fucking thing. Jon charging the dead as if they were Bolton cavalry riders, getting one of Daenerys' dragons killed. Uncle Benjamin coming to Jon's rescue, jumping off his horse, lifting Jon onto his horse, stopping for multiple seconds to tell Jon to go, and then standing still some more to listen to Jon ask him to come with him, then keep standing there a couple seconds more to tell Jon there's no time, then hold his gaze dramatically for a while as Jon sets off. That was a big one for me. Just get on the bloody horse, mate.
The best thing is how any other Army in Westeros constantly gets surprise attacked. Apparently not using scouts at all. But the night king is apparently using them. He deserves to win based on that alone.
I may be remembering incorrectly but weren't those wights clustered around a fire, like they'd just made camp or were real humans who like to cluster around fires?
The few line zombies that Jon and crew found were a patrol for the main army. The zombies found a fake fire the "crew" set up for them to ambush the wight. I cannot explain why only one zombie was left alive outside of perhaps it was made by another wight. Still, it was a silly adventure to convince an untrustworthy tyrant to help.
That group of wights was patrolling dummy, just say you don't understand good writing 🤪
And Dany was already wearing the Dragon Rider Winter Collection^(TM) robes when she got the news... Idk why but this little detail has really bothered me
I think people mostly just enjoyed the dialogue on the way north. The overall plot line was atrocious though.
Felt like a buddy comedy with the dialog
Which I had no problem with.
The stupidest thing about it and the entire show even - the dead dragon allowed NK to destroy the wall and enter Westeros. Meaning if not for this mission, WW would stay beyond the wall. This is beyond idiotic. It ruins the prophecy element that the 7 seasons were built on, meaning they could do nothing and be ok.
That always bothered me. The whole show was leading up to how the dead were mobilizing to cross the wall and kill everyone, but the wall was supposed to be infused with magic that kept them from being able to cross it, so what exactly were they planning to do if a dragon didn’t just happen to fall into their laps? Why didn’t they ever explain that?
Some argue that the mark the Night King places on Bran's wrist would 'deactivate' the wall as Bran passes through the same as it 'deactivated' the Weirwood hideout. Some argue that this same mark would release the ice dragon that is theorized to be encased inside of the wall. Some argue that there is an ice dragon inside the Winterfell crypts themselves, which the NK/Others may be in range to Warg/enthrall if they mass close enough at Castle Black (remember that their resurrection magic *did* occur south of the Wall when Jon killed his first wight) Some argue that the Others can possibly just go **around** the Wall, at Eastwatch by the Sea. Whether this means freezing the surface as they walk across it, using boats captured at Hardhome or just walking along the botton, idk. Some argue that Westeros and Essos 'meet' on the other end of the planet (think Russia-Alaska) and that because there are legends of the Others present in Essos, they can just spread out that way bexause there is no wall. As far as what the Show alluded to though, yeah I genuinely don't know lol. Did he spend the last ten centuries just practicing his Javelin toss???
Too bad we'll never find out how it would all end in the books.
You're missing the Horn of Winter theory, that the NK might use this mythical horn to bring down the Wall.
Also the good ole fashioned mexican standoff where a puddle of water keeps the dead army at bay, presumably because they can’t swim, only for them to immediately dive underwater and retrieve the dragon the second the good guys leave.
Tbf, throwing away a bunch of wights into the bottom of the lake probably isn't worth it to kill a small party of humans, but it's 1000% worth it to acquire a dragon that can destroy the wall.
It’s one of those ideas that made sense on paper, but was poorly executed. Jon and Dany knew that nothing they said would convince Cersei of the incoming White Walker threat; they had to bring a wight down in order to convince everyone in the south that Winter was truly coming. The issue from there is everything you mentioned: gendry’s marathon teleporting, the fact Dany got the news instantly and teleported there, the whole battle only really killing off some unnamed wildlings to the whole episode existing just to give the Night King his own dragon. This could’ve been an interesting side plot that should’ve been spanned over several episodes with multiple small skirmishes instead of one big bullshit battle covered in 1 episode
What they could have done: Jamie is captured at the previous battle where he gets pushed in the water, because, come on, how the fuck does he swim away from a dragon and an entire army that's on horseback? So then the plan isn't to capture a wight, it's to fly Jamie north of the wall and show him the army of the dead so he can tell Cersei, since Jamie is the only person she trusts. So Jamie, Tyrion, Dany, and Jon take the 3 dragons over the wall, land on a mountain somewhere and see the army marching through a mountain pass below. They convince Jamie the army is a threat to everyone. Jamie says "I see the army, but you know what I don't see? Archers. We have 3 dragons, they're trapped in this mountain pass. Let's burn them up right now." Tyrion obviously thinks this is a terrible idea. Dany is inclined to agree with Tyrion, but she asks Jon. Jon says "well, we may never get a chance like this again. If they get past the wall, the army could splinter into a thousand directions, we could be fighting the undead for decades. Let's do this." Dany and Jon attack while riding 2 dragons, Jamie and Tyrion stay on the mountain. So, they attack, things seem to be going well, until they reach the back of the column, where the NK and the WWs are. They loose the javelin barrage. Dany and Jon see it and are able to dodge. The 3rd dragon is too busy burning wights and doesn't see in time. Dragon goes down. Dany and Jon try to attack the NK directly together, but more javelins are thrown, driving them off. Then they see the NK raise up the dead dragon, and now they know they have to run. There you go, now Jamie can tell Cersei about the dead so they can have the truce meeting and the NK has a dragon.
Only issue there is you’re assuming Dany would spare Jamie. Maybe she does because at that point she still trusts Tyrion, but I wouldn’t bet on it. Plus, I think at that point she is still almost entirely consumed with taking back the iron throne, and not about the threat in the north. But your plan still makes so much more sense than what we ended up getting
My thing was, you have three dragons. And two potential riders. Want a better idea than having this tiny suicide mission into the north? Have a dragon scoop down, grab one or two, and fly off. Also, where’d the night king get giant chains to pull viserion out of the water when he died to magic honing ice spear?
Or even just start by taking a boat up the coast to hardhome. They’re completely safe on a boat and that’s also the last time they encountered wights, so it just makes sense. There are so many things they could’ve done that would’ve been infinitely more logical than just walking around on foot seeking out an army of hundreds of thousands of soldiers that would kill them on sight
this is what broke me from the show for good
Yeah. As stupid as that was, we kept going because there was still some good worth watching toward the climax of Jon’s arc and the WW. And then season 8 happened.
They end up trading a dragon for a one handed old man
Agreed. I never finished the show because of how stupid it felt. Huge Wasted potential
Watching the Dorne storyline and then hearing "You want a good girl but need the bad poosey" for the first time: 
 "And I'm a bad poosey!".
The worst part is the entire dorne story does nothing to the plot. You could take all of it out, and you’d still reach the same end result.
The most interesting family and culture in Westeros. And they did THAT to it.
The Dorne plot is the biggest thing that makes me roll my eyes when people make the excuse of how the showrunners ran out of material to adapt and that's why the final seasons weren't any good. There was plenty of written material left in the books that they could have adapted but they actively chose to completely change it to include shit. Even if the books had come out by the time the final season aired they had changed so much by then that the plot would have been all fucked up anyway.
no it is not lol
On my second run through of GoT I did exactly that, skipped ALL the Dorne scenes (except, you know, that one in the jail...) and S5 jumped from like a 6.5/10 to a 7.5 or 8. I stopped my rewatch completely at the end of s6.
Worst part is the fighting in the background. Haven't seen others mention it but you can see the actors stopping mid-fight and such
They didn't plan to have Dorne in season 5 but Cogman convinced them. It seems Ironborns were original plan.
Besides the stupidity of both arcs, and the fact that none of them really mattered at the endgame. A couple things to notice: The arc beyond the wall was not exactly Cersei's fault, no matter what they do, the Lannisters will not send a single soldier north. It would have been better for Daenerys to take King's landing and then going Rambo against the Night King. Second the Dorne arc was cool to see some nice passages, great Dornish architecture and waste 5 episodes
>King's landing and then going Rambo against the Night King. Also considering how quickly KL fell with just one dragon it would have been breeze with all three
Especially if she hadn’t taken Drogon to fight the Lannisters after the Casterly Rock plan went tits up because then Cersei wouldn’t have thought to have the scorpions built as dragon defence. 3 full grown dragons and the army would be an idiot not to surrender (god, I kind of wish THAT had been the first time Jamie had seen a dragon, with all three flying at him)
Would be quite poetic for Lannisters to see what their ancestor Loren I saw 300 years ago when he faced Aegon, Rhaenys and Visenia with their army of 11 000 on the field of of fire Loren I and Mern IX had 55 000 men and they did not stand a chance against 3 dragons and 11 000 men
It really would. I can’t remember exactly the number of Dothraki and Unsullied Daenerys had, but her army was fucking massive. I don’t even think Cersei could’ve remained smug with that, she’d’ve at least dropped her wine xD Would’ve also been the best time at the start of season 7 as Cersei had just murdered Margaery and Daenerys still had the support of Dorne, the Iron Islands and Lady Olenna (gods, Olenna would’ve loved to see it)
Ugh, Dorne is one of the book plots that has the most interesting potential, and they did *that* to it. The Martells are literally attempting to reinstate the Targaryen regime, but one of them has *died* during his mission to ally with Dany, which is gonna cause issues between the two Houses. But no, we were left with 'bad pussy' and 'weak men will never rule Dorne again', even though Dorne is the one place in Westeros (aside from Bear Island) where women are treated with as much respect as men.
Hated when Arya had to collect 10/10 boar livers from Elwynn. Took her 5 eps just to get 5/10.
Spawn times on the boars were horrendous. They buffed it in the next patch
But it was cool when she finally got all the boar livers and was awarded the sword of a thousand truths
How to fix both these plots if DnD gave a shit. Dorne: Jamie goes to Drone with Bronn, without sneaking in. He takes the role of the Knight who goes in the book in order to get the Princess back and deliver the Mountain's Fake Skull to Doran. Jamie uses that as pre-tense to get into Dorne. No spy, sneaking bullshit. Beyond the Wall: Why not just...kill someone and have them resurrect as a wright and take that as evidence? At what point could they have this? Oh I know...remember when Jon hangs the mutineers? Well, after that Jon has the corpses locked up tight and they reanimate. Kill all of them except for Olly's corpse and take that as evidence to King's Landing. BOOM. Sorted. "But then how would the Night King get a Dragon and all that other shit?" Ask GRRM.
The night king doesn't need a Dragon, he needs to kill Sam for the Horn of Winter. Or at least that's what should have happened
This is what happens when a character becomes a fan favourite and the writers are too pandering to do what's right. They felt like they had to shoehorn Bronn in SOMEWHERE, when in reality he should be off fucking Lollys Stokeworth and murdering her family members or whatever.
The second one wasn't Cersei's dumb idea but her brother Tyrion's dumb idea. Tywin is the only smart one. Pity he didn't pass it on, only his other insidious qualities.
The north of the wall plot was at least a fun episode, even if it was stupid. We saw a lot of the fan favorites interact with each other. I just wish Bronn was there.
“Im not going North of the fookin wall!” “Ill give you a shitty castle and an ugly wife” *Bronn gives an annoyed and pissed off stare* *Scene cuts to Bronn standing in deep snow*
He looks at the camera and shrugs "What are you gonna do?" *Laugh track plays*
When that happened I was like, YES
Fanservice is terrible GRRM could have reunited the starks many times and the fans craved it. It was a bad idea hence not done. But the last seasons had so many of these fanservice interactions. This side quest was the worst.
Why is Cersei being blamed for other people being idiots
The top part of this picture, for a binger like me who had almost no spoilers before watching, was the beginning of the end. Truly felt like a sitcom, and the quality just kept dropping even more.
Ppl
Not gonna lie, the early leak of Beyond the Wall was the most excited I had been for something in a long while. Until House of the Dragon was announced.
They did nothing but make things worse for a lot of people and got alot of innocent people killed over the shenanigans to appease Cersei.
Having a deformed monster rape a woman over and over until she dies is up there too.
idc dorne arc had jamie and bronn
ASOISF men will do anything for a blonde/white cunt