trinityvixen:

moonlitgleek:

The CerseiTyrion convo perfectly crystallizes what’s wrong with this show’s writing: no consistency in characterization or plot. I feel bad saying this because Peter and Lena sold the scene like nothing else, from the second Tyrion’s trepidation was glaringly obvious as he walked into that solar like a man walking to his execution to the furious exchange between the two siblings. But there is so many holes in that scene it’s practically see-through. We move from rational politician!Cersei to irrational murderous!Cersei in a blink in an eye. It’s not unlike her to throw the responsibility of Myrcella and Tommen’s death on Tyrion despite the fault being Tywin’s and hers, but I don’t get the start of the conversation at all; how her starting point was that he brought Dany there to aid the destruction of their family. Huh? But then she takes a step back and actually starts talking to Tyrion instead of having him murdered on the spot, even though every bit of characterization from Cersei, however inconsistent it was, points to how Tyrion should never have left that room alive. That he challenged her to do it and she didn’t despite seeing him as the one who brought their family’s destruction (I’m not gonna talk about the valonqar because apparently that was forgotten) makes zero sense.

I agree with there being no way she would let him leave alive, but for her ruse with Euron to work, she needed to pretend Tyrion had brought her around. I’d have been more impressed if he actually had. That would have been much more difficult writing to manage–making Cersei Lannister see actual sense.

Why did she need that bit of theater in the first place though? She agreed to the truce at first leaving her free to work with Euron behind the scenes, but then she turned around and refuse them based on a very thin pretext that I do not understand at all leading to her “need” to pretend Tyrion convinced her. Why? What does this accomplish that her initial agreement did not?

It also really minimizes Tyrion again. It feels like the theme of this season is “Tyrion Lannister has no idea what he is doing”. He is wrong at every turn. He randomly forgets to do his homework when drawing battle plans. He seemingly does not know his sister enough to fall easily to her ruse. Tyrion is smarter than that, more calculating and more intuitive. But he is inexplicably failing at every turn, even in scenarios where he knows what he is doing.

Oh, where to begin with this nonsense?

1. No, Bran. Jon is still a Snow. Bastards take the name of where they are raised, not where they are born. Hence Bittersteel and Bloodraven being Aegor and Brynden Rivers instead of Waters, and Robert’s bastard Edric having the last name Storm instead of Flowers. It’s also a known fact that Jon was born in Dorne and everyone still called him Snow. Why would the parentage reveal suddenly make him a Sand?

2. No, Sam. Jon is still a Snow. That annulment would never happen, neither would the High Septon randomly tell no one but record it in a private diary that for some forsaken reason made its way to the Citadel. At best, Rhaegar wed Lyanna bigamously, and that’s not legal in Westeros.

3. No, D&D. I will not accept your shit love story between Rhaegar and Lyanna being a backdrop to the one between Jon and Dany. The former only serves to minimize Elia, Lyanna and Dany, and the latter was not properly set up and felt pushed at every turn. The fact that you felt the need to repeatedly tell us that Jon and Dany were making eyes at each other is a testament to that. (And why was Tyrion framed as a part of a love triangle with the weird watching from the wings bit?)

4. Fuck that part about Robert’s Rebellion being built on a lie. Robert’s Rebellion happened because Aerys killed Rickard and Brandon Stark and their entourages, it happened because Rhaegar chose to vanish for months and let everything go to shit. You’re not minimizing that. Fuck off.

5. Oh Rhaegar luvvvvved Lyanna!! He just declared for the guy who killed her father and brother, and went on to fight her other brother leaving instructions that made his Kingsguard fight Ned for funsies. He just threw away his wife and two children like discarded trash for no reason. How romantic.

6. Lyanna Stark would never do that. She would never deliberately make a statement about her son being a replacement for his recently murdered brother. She would never aid and abet Rhaegar’s cruel victimization of Elia and her children. I do not care that you’re combining Jon’s story with that of Young Aegon’s, I do not even get the point of doing that. No, wait, I do get the point. Season 7 was all about teasing a Starkbowl that would not happen, now you’re teasing a Targaryenbowl that will not happen. Because that’s good drama to you.

I take heart in GRRM being a far superior writer than to write any of that crap.

Honestly, the actors are the making of this episode, the Lannister actors in particular. But the plot has gotten out of the writers control. I didn’t really care about Jaime leaving Cersei because they twisted the narrative too damn much to make him stick by her even when it ceased to be logical. Thus all the feelings I managed to muster was due to Nikolaj and Lena, otherwise it’s a big meh. Which is a statement to the quality of writing because this was supposed to be one of the most powerful scenes in the twins’ narrative. Instead it fell flat.

The snow over King’s Landing is pretty though.

Wow, Littlefinger’s death really did nothing for me. Like Ramsay’s last season, the shenanigans the writers did with the plot to raise the stakes hollowed it out, though it’s more amplified in LF’s case because their fakeout consisted of having Sansa and Arya go at each other in closed rooms with no explanation as to why they were doing so, having Littlefinger believe that Sansa would execute Arya publicly  in the Great Hall ignoring the taboo of kinslaying, and that she would not bother having one Northern lord there to even witness the trial, making Littlefinger way too stupid and sloppy, and injecting some nice comments about Sansa being a slow learner and a whole illogical part about her letter being incriminating, which it wasn’t.

The one good thing about this plot is that it is over.

Much as I like Theon having that bit of affirmation that he is a Stark as well as a Greyjoy, 1) I really do not believe Jon would forgive Theon or give him that affirmation so easily and in a way that doesn’t really feel earned, and 2) this feels too much like a prelude to Jon declaring he is both a Stark and a Targaryen so the show could breeze over that discovery without delving into how devastating it should be for Jon. It’s to be brushed aside too quickly, I bet. Now I understand why they kept mentioning Ned this episode, so they could fall back on it when Jon discovers that he is the Last Targaryen Prince. That speech to Theon was really about Jon’s own parentage.