Moderator: Chief Couch Potato Kylie

THE SPECS:

Who:  “Game of Thrones” aired on premium cable TV, specifically on HBO, for eight seasons from 2011-2019.

What: “Game of Thrones” is a fantasy drama based on the series of novels entitled A Song of Ice and Fire, by George R. R. Martin, which tells the tale of the land of Westeros and the various families and factions vying for the Iron Throne, i.e. rule of all of the seven kingdoms in a world of magic, dragons, swordplay, and death (for a more detailed Synopsis, read here).

When: Season 8 aired on HBO from April 14, 2019, to May 19, 2019, with a total of 6 episodes.

Where: The show is set in the fictional land of Westeros, a world that could be Europe, could be Middle Earth, or could be most fantasy/epic realms. Westeros is divided into Seven Kingdoms, but rule of all kingdoms hails from the Iron Throne, in King’s Landing. The show follows key characters across most realms.

Why: A friend basically recommended that the Chief CP watch it and for good reason (other panelists received similar recommendations).  I, personally, gravitate toward fantasy and science fiction most frequently; fantasy is also my favorite genre to read.  I haven’t read Martin’s currently-in-progress series, as some of the panelists have, which has become something of a cultural watershed not unlike the Harry Potter novels, though I plan to do so.  Our resident book readers laud the show about as highly as they do the novels; thus, with this solid foundation, an obsession with Game of Thrones was born, for all of our (returning) panelists.

How – as in How Was It? – THOUGHTS

For a recap of season 4, read here.

CPU! also previously published podcast episodes reviewing and recapping Seasons 5, 6, and 7.  To catch up, click the embedded links below:

Season 5

Season 6

Season 7

It’s been over a year since our noble Game of Thrones panel – consisting of Kristen, Amanda, Jay, Chelsea, and Rob – compared notes regarding the dragon-laden epic, which is just as well because for several of CPU!’s episodes in this podcast series, our panel has become increasingly frustrated with the direction of the story, only for those frustrations to culminate, along with the rest of the World Wide Web, into a frenzy of disappointment if not outright outrage following the airing of the series finale last spring. In fact, the reactions of each panelist reverberated so strongly that the events of the season were still incredibly clear and fresh in their minds, though we recorded our “Goodbye” miniseries of episodes several months after the fact (allowing time for instant reactions and furor to abate). As such, though we purposefully and thoughtfully procrastinated in recording said final season recap and review, the passing of time did little to stymie the panel’s heartfelt passion of a mostly angst-ridden nature in this, one of our final two discussions about the series.

In tonight’s episode, the first of a two-part Goodbye Miniseries in which our panel bids adieu to Game of Thrones, our panel of GoT obsessed processes the final Season 8, and, as usual, our maester-like bunch does not disappoint with their effusive opinions. We cover quite a bit of territory, revisiting all the theories, controversies, and questionably dark cinematography of battles in the last season of Game of Thrones as well as begin our comparison and contrasting of the final season versus all of the other seasons that preceded it. 

This podcast episode was recorded in January 2020 (back when no pandemic had yet been declared), and there are, without question, MAJOR SPOILERS, as we cover major plot points throughout the eighth and final season of GoT. Listen at your own risk, and let us know what you think by commenting below!

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Remember, new episodes and blog posts are published weekly!  Next week, we will publish the second part of this two-part Goodbye Miniseries, in which our Game of Thrones panel returns to the Water Cooler to Look Back at the show as a whole in one last melancholy chat now that all is said and done. Stay tuned!

Lingering Questions

1) REPEAT QUESTION: Is the Azor A’hai the same as the Prince Who Was Promised? Is the Azor A’hai one person? If so, is it Jon (Kit Harington) or Danaerys (Emilia Clarke) or someone else?  Or, is it the combination of three people who can ride Dany’s dragons? And who are those three people…? Jon? Dany? Tyrion (Peter Dinklage)? Anyone else?

NEW ANSWER: The Azor A’hai and the Prince Who Was Promised are two names for the same basic concept; however, the show falls short of enumerating an explicit answer for this theory in the final season. For example, the Prince Who Was Promised/Azor A’hai is supposed to be the figure responsible for defeating the Night King and beating back the Armies of the Dead during the prophesied “Long Night.” The translation of “Azor A’hai” is also supposed to be gender neutral. Arya Stark (Maisie Williams) defeats the Night King in Episode 3, “The Long Night.” She is technically a princess of Winterfell/House Stark, but does Arya fulfilling this purpose mean that she is the Prince Who Was Promised (which is rendered even more significant by the fact that Arya frequently defied gender norms in order to take actions and to make choices typically thought to be male-only in the fictional universe of Thrones)? Also, Jon, due to his acknowledged Targaryen lineage, successfully rides Rhaegal, but who ultimately can ride a dragon seems to factor little into the other prophecy. All in all, the panel’s consensus of opinion is that the series writers/creators mishandled the book-to-screen depictions of the various prophecies, leaving far too much to the imagination. Only George R.R. Martin can save us now, and he’s running on borrowed time after years of perfectionism-related book drought and distractions created by selling his intellectual property to HBO. The question is: will anyone care when Book 5 (or 6 or 7) is finally published?

2) REPEAT QUESTION: Will we see “Clegane-bowl,” i.e. the Hound (Rory McCann) v. the Mountain in hand-to-hand combat in the war to come?

ANSWER: Yes. To panelist Kristen’s delight, we see the much clamored-for and much ballyhooed Clegane-Bowl in Episode 5, “The Bells.” Listen to the podcast episode for details.

3) The panelists predict 6 to 1 that Cersei (Lena Headey) will meet her maker next season: will it be Jaime (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, as we hope) who ultimately ends her life? Will it be Tyrion, though he is not one for getting his hands dirty and though he tries to make amends with his rotten older sister at the end of Season 7? Or, will it be Arya, wearing the face of Jaime after offing him first and then using the power of the Many Faced God to complete her list?  Or, will it be the alleged baby that Cersei is now purportedly pregnant with, as she informs her brother that it is his, of course, what with all of their twincesting, at the end of the season?  Although, the baby would be her other children’s younger brother, and is that idea really within the purview of the prophecy?  Panelist Kristen also surmises that Cersei could die in childbirth, like her mother; could have a miscarriage; or could end her pregnancy, though the panel determined that neither of these ends really satisfy as much as the first three proposals.  What we know is that we are agreed: Cersei will die.  It’s just a question of when and how.

ANSWER: See below (SPOILERS).

* Cersei does, in fact, die. After Drogon torches King’s Landing (listen to the episode for details), the Red Keep collapses on top of Cersei and Jaime, who has returned to Cersei for the purpose of ensuring that she escapes King’s Landing when Dany comes for her; this collapse crushes them lifeless in Episode 5.

* No one kills Cersei, per se. Jaime does lead Cersei down into the crypts of the Red Keep, where both of their fates are met. How was Maggy the Frog’s prophecy worded? “And when your tears have drowned you, the valonqar shall wrap his hands about your pale white throat and choke the life from you.” Valonqar is Valeryian for “little brother.” Is Cersei besot by tears as she and her twin brother/lover flee to the Red Keep crypts? Does Jaime essentially cause Cersei’s death, and his own, by leading her down there? Is crushing by castle the same as wrapping hands around Cersei’s throat and choking the life from her? On the other hand, Daenarys is riding Drogon at the time, and she is the younger sister of her House, as well as being the only commonly known survivor (apart from Jon Snow/Aegon Targaryen), and we all know how Valeryian can be “gender neutral” in the use of certain terms (see also: Azor A’hai). Is Dany the Valonqar? Or, is Maggy’s prophecy much ado about 2/3 of it and not so much about all of it? Or, did David Benioff and D.B. Weiss fumble at the goal line (the panel believes that this latter scenario is likely the real one)?

* Cersei is truly pregnant with Jaime’s child; however, she loses it all when she loses her life.

4) Now that Jon Snow and Dany have fallen in love, not knowing their true relationship – i.e. that Dany is Jon’s secret aunt – will Dany become pregnant with a human baby?  Will that baby be, in fact, the Prince Who Was Promised?  The Song of Ice and Fire?  The Azor Ahai?  The Savior of All?  Will the show finally answer the question of that mystical entity’s identity: Jon, Dany, or the offspring of Ice and Fire, respectively?  How much ice and how much fire does one story possibly need?! (Okay, we agree…a lot, when it’s called A Song of Ice and Fire).

ANSWER: There is no baby created between Jon and Dany. The show seems to posit, without confirming explicitly, that Arya is the Prince Who Was Promised, but the “Song of Ice and Fire” seems most assuredly to be the “Tale of Houses Stark and Targaryen,” though House Stark’s tale also includes Sansa (Sophie Turner), Arya, and Bran (Isaac Hempstead-Wright). Listen to the podcast episode for details.

5) The panel universally predicts and agrees that there are two major battles left.  One: fighting to fend off Winter, i.e. the White Walkers.  Two: the fight for the Iron Throne.  Which will come first?  Will the White Walkers be beaten back?  Will the Iron Throne remain standing after all is said and done?

ANSWER: There are, in fact, two major battles. The battle to fend off Winter transpires first, throughout Episode 3, “The Long Night.” (SPOILER) The White Walkers are defeated. The fight for the Iron Throne is not so much a battle of swords and horses but one of dragon-razing and words: Danaerys takes a controversial turn in Episode 5 and decides to take King’s Landing by force, using Drogon to level the entire city and all of its (innocent) residents. She is defeated only when Jon Snow, who still has her trust, approaches her with a ploy to consummate their incestuous romance, which he previously denied when he learned his true parentage from Sam (John Bradley) in Episode 1, “Winterfell,” by attaining audience with her in the throne room of the Red Keep, marred by Drogon-causing ash, and by stabbing her in the heart in the series finale, “The Iron Throne.” Upon her death, Drogon commits his final act of “burnination” by breathing fire upon and melting the actual Iron Throne, thereby causing Tyrion and the other remaining Westerosi leaders to decide how rule of the Seven Kingdoms should thereafter be facilitated. Listen to the podcast episode for many more details.

6) Will both Jon and Dany survive the series?  Panelist Rob predicts that Jon will nobly sacrifice himself for the good of all.  The rest of the panel, panelist Amanda most reluctantly, feels that Dany’s tragic death, after all of her struggle to be ruler of Westeros, is the more likely scenario.  We expect her to sacrifice herself for the good of all, including her dragons, her Jon, and her country.  Of course, everyone hopes everyone will survive, but the show already took out a dragon, and after seven seasons, we know that nothing is safe, even as Jon Snow knows nothing.  Still.

ANSWER: No. As above, Jon Snow takes Daenarys Targaryen’s life after she, controversially, shows herself to be a ruthless conqueror, not unlike her father, the Mad King Aerys. Jon survives but does not assume overall rule of the Seven Kingdoms, despite the fact that he could. Listen to the podcast episode for details about this crucial climax and our panel’s reaction.

7) Will Tyrion survive?  What was with his suspicious look when he saw Jon and Dany enter a room together, making googly eyes at each other, about to do some unbeknownst-to-them incest??  Panelist Kylie predicts that Tyrion will survive and will be the character who provides the end commentary about the future fates of Westeros.

ANSWER: Tyrion survives and provides an Emmy-worthy monologue about the potential landscape of governing future Westeros, which more or less satisfies the Chief CP’s prediction. As for his suspicious look at Jon and Dany, he was simply wary that this romance/liaison would be distracting to the larger purpose of ensuring the fate and future of Westeros with Dany’s installation as queen. He wasn’t entirely wrong about that, but it was such a small distraction, really.

8) Will Sansa end up being Queen in the North?  Will Winterfell survive?  Or, will the Walkers lay waste to the north, resulting in the Starks abandoning their ancestral home, as panelist Jay predicts?  Will Sansa be around to help rebuild?  Or, will she fall in defense of the North that she loves?

ANSWER: Sansa survives and is appointed Queen in the North by the new King of Westeros Bran (listen to the podcast episode for details). Winterfell survives and becomes an independent kingdom, though one willing to be of help and aid to the kingdoms of the South.

9) Will Arya survive?  Will she do something awesome in battle, like take out some White Walkers?  Will she kill Jaime?  Will she kill Cersei?  If she does survive, what will be her life’s purpose, should her vendetta list no longer apply?  Will she at least get to see Jon before too long?  They’re each other’s favorite not-quite-sibling.  It would be nice.

ANSWER: Arya survives and does some stuff….LIKE TAKE OUT THE NIGHT KING! Arya ends up being the biggest of hero of the story. She does not kill Jaime and is dissuaded from killing Cersei by the Hound. She does receive a nice assist from Jon in the Battle for Winterfell as she ninja-stabs the Night King in his torso, preceded by a loving reunion to start the season and succeeded by a loving goodbye to end it, once the kingdoms survive the ordeals of Season 8, and once Arya is persuaded to abandon what is left of her vendetta.

10) Why should we bother or care about House Greyjoy at this point?  Seriously, though, show.  Several panelists, Amanda most of all, predict that Theon (Alfie Allen) and Yara might have some redemption deed to do in one or both of the upcoming battles.  Most of us just find it hard to care more about them than other characters still in the game.

ANSWER: Amanda is correct. Though Yara does not do much individually, she and her brother make a stand with the men from the Iron Islands to attempt to protect Bran, who is hiding by the Weirwood tree at Winterfell, acting as bait, as he is the draw for the Night King as he comes South, spurred by their previous encounter in Season 6. Theon, as it turns out, dies in the act of protecting Bran from the onslaught of the Night King and the White Walkers, just before Arya swoops in and ends them all, once and for all. In this way, Theon is redeemed, as he dies protecting the Starks.

11) Will anyone save Viserion the Dragon?  Will the other dragons, Rhaegal and Drogon, survive?  WILL THERE BE A THREE-HEADED DRAGON RIDING SITUATION IN THE END?  PLEASE?

ANSWER: Since Viserion is a wight dragon, he dies the permanent death upon Arya’s execution of the Night King. Sadly, Rhaegal also is a casualty of Season 8, as he runs afoul of Qyburn’s ballistas, housed aboard Euron Greyjoy’s portion of the Iron Fleet, when Daenarys controversially decides to storm the breeches of King’s Landing in Episode 4, “The Last of the Starks,” with battle-weary forces depleted by the White Walkers in Episode 3. Drogon survives the series, but, sadly, there is no three-headed dragon riding situation, and it is possibly one of the most deeply disappointing developments, on top of a sizable handful of them, of Season 8.

12) Are the Lannisters, any of them, secretly Targaryen offspring?  Kylie’s money is still on Tyrion, but how would we even know that now?  Would it matter, except for the purpose of fulfilling the Three-Headed Dragon theory that may or may not come to pass, on account of zombified Viserion flying around the unfriendly skies?

ANSWER: If they are, we will never know from the show, and it wouldn’t matter but for the Three-Headed Dragon theory, which the show essentially discarded altogether.

13) Will Bran or Sam finally tell Jon who his real parents are?  And if either of them do, what difference will that information make, other than to prove that Jon has, currently, the most legitimate claim to the Iron Throne, given that Rhaegar, his biological father, legitimately but secretly married to Jon’s mother, Lyanna Stark, at the time of his death, was the true heir to the throne prior to Robert’s Rebellion?

ANSWER: Sam tells Jon in Episode 1, and this information essentially spurs two events: first, Jon tells Dany that they can’t be in love and stuff because, ew, incest, and second, Dany has to reevaluate just how much it means to her to have the Throne when he has the more legitimate claim. The end result is that she decides she wants it so much, she’s willing to make rash, flawed tactical choices to realize the ends to her means, including her long march across the lands. Of course, the information might have made more difference if Daenarys had not snapped in Episodes 4 and 5, or if there was a push to reinstate potential claims on whatever throne is left, but Jon, weary of the politics of the realm and permanently scarred by being in the position of having to take out his aunt Dany, renounces any claim he had to the Throne and agrees to be shipped to Castle Black in an effort to appease the Unsullied, who are willing to keep all the wars going in vengeance for the death of their white-haired Queen.

14) What is Bran’s ultimate purpose as the Three-Eyed Raven?  Will he be the magic that keeps the White Walkers at bay in the end, as panelist Jay predicts? Will he warg into direwolves or zombie dragons to save the day, as panelist Chelsea predicts?  Where will Bran end up?  Of course, several panelists estimate that he’ll just live out his days creepily telling everyone that he is the Three-Eyed Raven, no matter what happens in this Game of Thrones.

ANSWER: As it turns out, Bran’s ultimate purpose is simply to be bait for the Night King and to be appointed King of Westeros upon the destruction of the Iron Throne, though the part about staying creepy is true. Listen to the podcast episode for the panel’s strong reactions to this information.

15) Did Tormund Giantsbane (Kristofer Hivju), who was on the parapets of the Wall at the time that zombie Viserion blue-fired it into ash, survive this onslaught?  Many of the panel, with the somewhat strong exception of Jay, wish for Tormund and Brienne of Tarth (Gwendoline Christie) to have gigantic babies, which necessarily requires that he stay alive.

ANSWER: Tormund survives and fights valiantly at the Battle of Winterfell before returning to the North and the rest of the Wildlings. He does not make gigantic babies with Brienne; unfortunately, she only has eyes for Jaime, to which our panelists also strongly react in tonight’s episode (listen to it already!).

16) Or, is Brienne finally going to get requited admiration from Jaime, who decides to ride North, away from his selfish sister, when she refuses to form an alliance with Houses Stark and Targaryen to defeat the White Walkers?

ANSWER: Brienne gets sex and, perhaps, an ounce of respect from Jaime, but not so much requited admiration of a romantic type; it turns Brienne into a bit of a weepy mess, and Jaime ultimately returns to Cersei. Again, listen to the episode. The panel kind of spent a proportionately longer time on this topic than on some others.

17) What will Sam and Gilly (Hannah Murray) do once – and if – they share the information they learned from Oldtown with Jon Snow?

ANSWER: They fight at Winterfell, and they survive. The information sharing itself does little beyond fulfill Sam’s desire to place Jon in a position to stake a claim to the Iron Throne, which he does in retaliation for learning from Dany that she had his father and brother dragon-torched in Season 7 for defying her. Hey – listen to that podcast episode now.

PARTING SHOTS

How can I summarize our panel’s reactions, gentle listener? Just like, apparently, the rest of the world, our panel expressed varying levels of explicit disappointment in what became Game of Thrones’ final season. Though our panel, like everyone else, quivered with anticipation prior to the beginning of Season 8, each passing episode, as they aired, only served to confound if not outright anger our resident Thrones viewers with each subsequent choice made by writer/creators David Benioff and D.B. Weiss, whether it was the (possibly too) dark battle for Winterfell in Episode 3 or the shocking turn of character for Daenarys Targaryen in Episode 5 or the ultimate fate of Jon Snow in Episode 6. The panelists disagreed at notable points about what was effective and what was not in the final season, but there was definite consensus surrounding the idea that Season 8’s execution was entirely too rushed, owing to the shortened episode order; entirely too messy; and its payoffs entirely too unearned, given how the writers steered the larger story from the beginning, even in the seasons not supported by the source material: the Song of Ice and Fire novels. Though the episodes were, mostly, beautifully rendered and shot from a visual perspective, and though the cast poured their passion and soul into the work that they had cumulatively nurtured for nearly ten years, the character decisions as fueled by the writers’ choices left all of our panelists unsettled, sometimes in common with events about which the internet was most vocal and sometimes for reasons that were often overlooked by the internet in the heat of the collective, emotional immediate reaction to first-time viewing.

Ultimately, the panel still regards Game of Thrones as one of the most exciting programs ever to hit the small screen, but the struggles in sloppy, breakneck pacing in Season 8, adding to the sense that the writers just wanted to be done, without thoughtfully considering everything that they had mapped out in prior seasons and without accounting for the mythology on which they heavily relied from George R.R. Martin’s published novels, left our panelists somewhat dumbstruck and unable to adjust to the various curve balls tossed out in Season 8. In fact, the unexpected events and subsequent let-down for each of our resident viewers drew not unfounded comparisons to another highly-rated zeitgeist of a TV drama with complex, largely unresolved/ignored mythology by the airing of the series finale: Lost.  Still, the panel acquiesced that nearly all of the final six episodes remained fraught with tension and grand spectacle, with excellent visual effects and some of the most superb acting currently on the small screen as well as thoughtful dialogue, like Tyrion’s final monologue to implore the great Houses of Westeros to appoint Bran as their overarching King.  

In the end, however, are the panelists still obsessed with the show, now that they know how it all concludes?  Arguably, the ship of loyal obsession has sailed, not unlike Arya Stark’s ship of exploration in the finale’s final moments, though Chief CP/Moderator Kylie, at least, wants to re-watch the series and to consider the totality of the circumstances before making a final judgment about the overall success of Game of Thrones. Did the program truly end as badly as we believe, or did we impress upon the show and, therefore, upon ourselves what we wanted to see without allowing for the flexibility to consider that the creators/writers might have been more out of their depth than for what we gave them credit? Only time will tell; maybe one day, we’ll record a Retrospective that digs deeper into the series than our typical Water Cooler episodes (and, for that matter, maybe we’ll do the same with Lost) to measure if Game of Thrones truly holds up and/or if the larger reaction to the final season is unfair and/or exaggerated due to the size of Thrones’ following. For now, we (all) probably need to let that time pass before picking up the series again – or before HBO airs prequels still rumored to be in development. After all, the palpable sense of, well, betrayal still hovers in each of the panelists’ minds, evidenced throughout the discussion in tonight’s episode.

LOOKING AHEAD

Game of Thrones has officially ended, but the CPU! GoT podcast panel is not quite finished! We will publish a second part to this Goodbye Miniseries, in which we will Look Back at the series as a whole, next week! Stay tuned, subscribe, like, and follow to keep abreast of that publication, and tell us what you think in the comment forums and/or review us wherever you get your podcasts!  Until next week!  Stay tuned!