Well it was an eventful finale. Even though I knew most of what was coming, the death of Jon Snow here hit much harder than in the book. Though I am a bit annoyed that Allister Thorne was behind it (I quite liked the idea that even though he was a dick and disagreed with Jon Snow he was willing to work with him - him killing Jon Snow can easily now be seen as part of that personal vendetta, although I think it probably was meant to be "For the watch" in his mind), and that it lingered so much on Olly stabbing him (I think the character was fine in season 4, he was extremely annoying in season 5 though). I suppose there aren't really any other Night's Watch characters other than Ser Allister to use, and better that it at least was clear that it was long standing members of the Night's Watch doing the deed than making it all about fucking Olly. Olly luring Jon Snow to be stabbed by the other Night's Watch members was actually good (or as good of their use of Olly was going to get), they should have just left it that rather than focusing so much on him stabbing him as well...
Possible spoilers from the books ahead, although I am only talking about the details that have already been done in the show or appear to have been changed.
Most annoying part about this finale was actually the fact that it was so similar to the end of the current books, which I don't think ended particularly strongly
: The Dorne storyline is unrecognisable, Brienne, Jaime and Sansa are far from their current status in the books because they were brought into other plots, but apart from that:
- Daenerys out in the wilderness with Drogon, gets confronted with a horde of Dothraki. Will they capture her? Kill her? Will Drogon try to roast them? Will they see the dragon and make her their leader? Don't know.
- Cersei completes Walk Of Shame and gets back to the Red Keep. She is still on trial for crimes by the faith, but may I introduce the newest member of the Kingsguard (perhaps news of Meryn Trant's death got back to KL pretty quickly in the show, or else the requirement for there to be seven Kingsgaurd are more just guidelines
).
- Jon Snow. "For The Watch". Olly doesn't exist, Ser Allister Thorne is elsewhere, so it's Bowen Marsh and the rest of the generic Night's Watch extras that stab him, who knows how many times ("He never felt the fourth knife. Only the cold")
These are the biggest storylines across books 4 and 5, and for all three the last scene was the same as the last pages of the last chapter of each character. With the show deviating from and outpacing the books I wondered if I might get a little bit extra, but it's basically the same cliffhanger-ish ending from the books. Jon Snow's ending might seem like it is pretty firmly resolved, but as with when I read it in the books it just seems impossible for that to be the end of Jon Snow's story. In this case, him coming back is not just denial or a pipe dream - in the books with all the lore, foreshadowing and prophecy there is a lot of evidence for it, and GRRM has been pretty liberal with resurrections and fake-out deaths in the books (something the show has avoided so far). It makes sense in the story for Jon to come back, and I'd go as far as to say that it is just bad writing if GRRM is permanently killing off Jon Snow at this point. Seeing the interview with Kit Harrington where he says he is not returning next season is the first time I've been slightly worreid Jon Snow might be permanently dead, but I've got to think that's just misdirection to not give away what happens immediately.
As well as those stories we've got the battle of Winterfell which has not been resolved (at least on page) in the books, but Theon jumping off the wall with Jeyne Poole (fake Arya) is the ending of his last chapter in book 5. Book 5 also ends with Jon Snow recieving word that the Boltons won the battle of Winterfell, Stannis is dead, Ramsay is king of the world etc., as has happened in the show, but in the books the battle hasn't been shown so most readers think that this information was false. So the show is deviating (or going ahead of the books) with how that turned out, but basically the books end with the battle for Winterfell completely unresolved...
There's also stragglers in Meereen. Tyrion didn't meet Daenerys in the books yet, and in fact just escaped from being a slave towards the end of book 5. Things are different at Meereen because as well as the Sons of the Harpy killing people in the city, it is literally beseiged by an army from the various pro-slaver factions nearby. Tyrion looks to be aligning himself with a mercenary company (one of two Daenerys picked up at Yunkai, along witn the company led by Daario. In the show the mercenaries were condensed into one company led by Daario), who will fight in the battle of Meereen against the pro-slaver army. My guess is that after they win the battle Tyrion will find himself in a position of some authority to clean up the mess in Meereen while Daenerys is lost in the wilderness - roughly the same as what has happened in the show. Basically, as of the end of ADWD the overall situations in Winterfell and Meereen are unresolved clusterfucks, left that way not because it was a particularly good ending point but because the book had literally got too long so GRRM and his editors chopped off the battle at each city (sometimes known as the "Battle of Ice" and "Battle of Fire" in the fandom) and moved them to book 6.
This season had some great stuff in it, and some real flaws. Some of that's down to the events of book 4 and 5 just making for a weaker story than the earlier books, some of that's due to additions and changes of the show being worse (Dorne being the main offender here), and some of that, I think, is because it is ending essentially where the current books end, rather than in previous seasons where they were more free to end each storyline a little bit before or after the end of the same storyline in the books. But I remain very hopeful for the show going forward, most notably because of Hardhome - that was basically original material for the show, and it was one of the best parts of the entire series. To me that demonstrates that when it comes to the conflict against the White Walkers, the show can do its own thing and do it well, so as we get closer to the end we will hopefully see the simplified version of Martin's ever-sprawling political story get more focused on that.
Topic: Game of Thrones (TV, fantasy) Thread (Read 647374 times)
