I think Matilda is such a fantastic historical figure. I enjoy Sharon Kay Penman’s historical fiction series that goes from the battle for the crown (Matilda v Stephen) all the way thru Richard the Lionheart’s crusade. It is fascinating to me to read the history of Matilda, her children, and grandchildren.

I find it funny when people bitch about Thrones characters making really dumb decisions, because history is rife with people doing exactly that.

I love Matilda. I fell in love with her story in college and wrote a huge term paper on her. The story of her escaping on Christmas night 7 months pregnant in her nightgown in the snow is the stuff of movie magic. I don’t know why the only time she has appeared on film is in the Pillars of the Earth as a bit player.…

Totally agreed. So many of these gaping plot holes could have been solved by some general dialogue. Which is far cheaper than CG dragons, I’d imagine. Break the whole season into a couple more episodes. 

She put him on. When he was 17, she flew him out and had him do her wedding make-up. He’s stayed with her family, knows them all and were friends.

And on Mother’s Day! It’s nice when a grown child makes time to spend the day with his mother, doing what they love to do.

How did that work out for them? They gave up the North because they saw the destructive power of the dragons. Then the dynasty they knelt to eventually murdered their leader and heir. But Sansa should be cool with kneeling this time after just fighting to take back their stolen home and homeland?  Why? Because Dany is…

I wasn’t disappointed with what cersei did, because I honestly think she had planned in her mind to win and she just had to wait it out.
What I do love is she alienated Jaime and Tyrion and they were her real military advisors.  She went with Euron who was only in it for the glory and Qyburn as her main advisors and…

Well it goes to show that “the wheel” works pretty well until Targaryens get involved. A group of elite families have upheld the status quo in Westeros for generations. It gets craven and violent at times (mostly among themselves) but there’s an art to it, and the outcome is stability and prosperity.

You’re right.  She didn’t have to spare Cersei, but she may have thought that Tyrion was working against her and for his family in some way (and in a sense he was, when he released Jamie).  Still, I think the bells were a signal to her that she ultimately didn’t trust Tyrion’s advice.

I think the problem with the final series of GoT is that they’re trying to tell a 22 episode story in 8 episodes...

I was saying last week that although Cersei is evil interpersonally, she’s likely the best ruler Westeros has had in decades - she paid off the kingdom’s debts, brought in a huge supply of food for the city just in time for winter, ramped up military protections against a foreign threat AND the Northerners (who had a…

I don’t think they would’ve. I thought about presenting what did happen in the episode in a gender-neutral way to illustrate that but if you had a male of the same nature as Daenerys I think there’d be no difference. Viserys springs to mind in the way he was portrayed.

Are people really this dense. You did get that several times it was said that ringing the bells meant they were surrendering right? That was the point

It’s not she’s skeptical, she downright doesn’t want a foreign ruler. She doesn’t trust anyone else in power, especially someone, a Targaryen she doesn’t know. She’s playing Littlefinger’s little game in her head, and doesn’t believe Daenerys to be any better than the other options besides Jon, a family member. We…

I think a lot of people, maybe evrn most objectors, would have been cool with “mad Queen Dany burns Kings Landing” if it had been set up better and more deliberatively (pacing is the issue with most of the plot beats this season)— she (and the show itself) has hinted arkund madness and and an ease witu using violence…

I agree with some but not all of those. Arya’s character shifts are immense at times and the continued bringing up of Sansa’s history of being abused still feels rancid.

The bells didn’t make her go crazy. It alerted her to a choice:

But most of what you’re describing happened in the space of a couple episodes, and there was limited time exploring how these experiences affected her. You’ve done more in a few paragraphs to flesh out her arc and motivation than the writers did. The set-up is there, but they skipped the steps of showing her…

I think it was a good idea that was poorly executed.