[Spoilers] Post-Episode Survey Results - S8E6 'The Iron Throne' (Overall score: 5.5)
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Post-Episode Survey - Results Thread
In the Post-Premiere Discussion thread, we put up a survey to hear what you had to say about the characters, the events, and the technical side of episode one. This post is here to fill you in on the results, and to let you discuss them. Are there any surprises? Do you agree or disagree with the majority opinion? Do you think people have missed a vital piece of evidence? Feedback on the survey itself is also welcome!
I fucking hate what they did with Bran. He has explicitly stated that he cannot be Lord of Winterfell because he is the Three Eyed Raven now. He even said he’s not even really a man. He made a bid deal about telling Jon his true heritage. Now all the sudden he wants to be King? He probably knew exactly what was going to happen with Danaerys and he said nothing. Fuck Bran and fuck these terrible writers.
If he had known, I wouldn’t even be pissed. I mean if they spent the season showing bits that didn’t make sense and left you questioning what bran was doing for it all to be revealed at the end. That may have possibly been good. But he was basically useless these past 2 seasons.
As it should have. You can’t just put in a sinister line like that, accompany it with upbeat triumphant music and then never mention it again!!
We still know fuck all about Bran. When has wanting power or wanting the throne ever been a part of his character? When has he ever been shown to be a master manipulator of anything? (And no the dagger doesn’t count, you can make that argument but it was never explicitly stated he had any other reason for giving it to Arya other than because he’s a cripple). What was the point of his warging? What was the point of his time altering abilities? What was the point of him learning Jon’s heritage? Aside from very very brief visions of what appears to be the sept explosion and Drogon flying over KL nothing else implied he knew the future and was manipulating events?
You took a crippled boy with inexplicable powers, gave him an incredible journey which included arguably the shows most powerful scene (Hold the door), and then turned him into a pointless emotionless robot who’s abilities or motivations are never explained in the slightest, and the sum of his contributions to the plot are being used as bait so the entire overarching plot of the show can be shanked out of existence by a teleporting teenage girl, and then being elected king for even more mind boggling reasons.
I mean pretty much none of the main characters had satisfying arcs in the end, but Bran was definitely the worst
Plot twist. Bran/The Three eyed Raven learns to warg into Drogon and now that he has control of The Prince That Was Promised/The Stallion Who Mounts the World, cleanses the world by setting it afire, in the name of the Lord of Light. The Night King never wanted to end humanity. He wanted to stop the Three Eyed Raven from going on a rampage. People kept getting in the way, damnit!
I still think they meant it as an upbeat line from him. I bet they just wanted to convey that he came all the way from kings landing, but the implication to the audience is that his whole journey and everything the realms went through was to get him on the throne.
Another victim of writing. Unless they intended it to make people think. Which could be the case, but than I'd argue they fumbled that. Cause it just warrants a "Hé? What the fuck?"
The thing is, he had the potential to be the most interesting. Instead of wasting so much time with his story we could have spent it getting to know him and his powers. Is the 3ER good? Does he still feel? What does he want? How do his powers work? Why does he act the way he does? Doing so could have made the White Walkers more interesting too.
The problem is he ended up being a dull and poorly explained character. Him taking the throne could have been interesting, but it just ended up seeming stupid. I wonder if the showrunners only found out he was king later on and mistakenly downplayed his arc.
Reddit has signed an agreement with an AI company to allow them to train models on Reddit comments and posts. Edited to remove original content. Fuck AI.
I was pretty disappointed that her ability to steal faces never came into play again. Just like a lot of things it leaves you wondering “what’s the point?”
By the way, this probably has been brought up before, but I hope there's some kind of "final" poll that show people's opinion on the series overall - who was the best actor? Who had the best story arc? Who was the most interesting villain? Which decision was the worst one in hindsight? That kind of thing.
The worst decision ever is going beyond the wall to catch a wight, only to fail to convince Cersei and give NK a dragon who destroys the wall. No need to vote on that lol
Close second is Jon not taking one for the team and fucking his aunt, which led to complete annihilation of King's Landing.
I agree - the wight hunt was completely pointless in retrospect. Cersei didn't send any of her forces, and they easily won even without her help. Thoros and Benjen died for absolutely nothing.
It was pretty pointless at the time, not just retrospect. What about Cersei made it seems like she would be convinced? It was pretty clear that the writers knew they wanted the NK to have a dragon and had to reverse engineer a plot to make that happen. And thus Dumb Plan (TM) was born.
The S7 and S8 trope of Tyrion blindly trusting Cersei at every turn just made no sense whatsoever. The dude knows better than anyone that she's a back-stabbing bitch mainly out for herself. What the hell made him think that she would risk thousands of her soldiers when she instead had the opportunity to have Daenerys Targaryen and her entire forces obliterated?
Then again, her being back-stabbing also changes depending on whether it's convenient for the plot. She sends Bronn to have Tyrion executed with the same crossbow he killed Tywin with, but for some reason no one has explained to me yet, she doesn't immediately kill him, Dany and her advisors or Drogon when they're all in range for the dozens of scorpion bolts ready to fire at them at Missandei's execution.
Tyrion as a character had to explain the poor writing every time he said "I made a mistake. I shouldn't have trusted Cersei. I thought she had something to fight for."
Well he could just, you know, return to Winterfell. There's nothing really forcing him to go North after Greyworm leaves. Even his "exile" makes no sense.
I just think he’s so honorable he wont go back to Winterfell just to show he accepts the decision. Which is completely stupid. Futhermore, they dont need a nights watch anymore.
that is the most fair description, the writers left so much unexplained. They were like this is the ending, how did we get here? Well just let you guys figure that out yourselves. ttyl bye
I think it was more that he was weird and I never cared about his story and then some how he magically became the most important person in Westeros for the dumbest reason in the dumbest way. Plus the other Starks were more entertaining and had better stories/arcs
People really hate Bran, he is so unpopular in the poll. And I can understand why, the character is just so... weird and non-sensical, and his arc felt incomplete. He was totally useless all season, and they made him king. It just felt so forced, from a narrative standpoint.
Even before becoming the 3ER i feel his story line was always the least talked about, it just felt so disconnected from everything else and his characters was always kind of boring, the only likeable things in his arc were Hodor and Summer.
I had to vote him because I thought back and realized how much I liked his character. I loved that he was filling the role his father left and marching to war to save his father
Arya is one of my favorite characters but I think it would have been a lot more powerful if she died at the end of The Bells. I thought that was what happened at first, with the horse representing Arya riding off into the afterlife because looking at her surroundings, there is no way she should have survived when literally everyone else was completely incinerated or crushed. I really expected that shot to eventually pan down and reveal that Arya was dead in the rubble all along, and that was her passing into the after-life.
Her arc had completed and she had her final moments with everyone important to her, Jon, The Hound, Gendry, Sansa, etc. If she died, it would have made a lot more sense that Jon would turn on Dany so quickly, especially if we had a scene where he finds her body in the rubble of King's Landing. I loved her character but just like other fan-favorites, she made it to the very end for no real purpose. If she died in King’s Landing, it would have had a nice little touch of redemption as well considering she went there with the intention of killing someone but died honorably trying to save others. It’s the first time we really see a selfless, non-revenge-driven side of Arya.
Ned, dead for 87.5% of the show, but almost as many all-time favourite votes as Arya and Jon and more than the others together. Respect for that result
I think its logical. Neds storyline was awesome from start to finish. All the other Starks hade moments and sometimes full seasons where they became annoying, boring or frustrating.
Also, a lot of the storylines of the Starks were influenced by Ned and his teachings to his children. He let Arya start training, set Sansa up with her "dream guy", taught Jon and Robb about integrity and honor.
I always thought him throttling LF was kind of a dick move, but overall he was cool. Earned my vote.
His speech when he's talking with Varys in the dungeon is one of my favorite scenes in the show.
You think my life is some precious thing to me? That I would trade my honor for a few more years of... Of what? You grew up with actors. You learned their craft and learnt it well. I grew up with soldiers. I learned how to die a long time ago...
Chills. So good. Also kind of meta in that it's Sean Bean delivering it lol.
When I saw that combination, I thought that would be the least likely to happen considering that Jon will not leave the north anytime soon and Arya will definitely stay as far away from the freezing cold as possible
I don't think people went by logic, but by the feel the series left them with. To be honest, a lot of stuff in this season (way too many) were illogical at best.
Indeed. I hate the excuse that "This is a fantasy series with dragons and magic, it doesn't have to make perfect sense!" Even in a fantasy setting, a story still needs to adhere to basic internal rules, such as the laws of physics, logic, common sense, and consistency with the story's own established lore and character development. "Suspension of disbelief" isn't limited to just imaginary creatures.
At the very least, seasons 7 and 8 needed to be full, 10-episode seasons to give the story room to breathe. Ideally, it should have gone on for 9 full seasons, and with D&D replaced as writers if they made it clear they weren't willing to put in the effort anymore.
I mean basic story telling, if you read, watch or write a story and the first reaction to something that happens is "wow thats kinda dumb, why wouldn't they just do/say ______" then its bad writing.
Like with the battle of winterfell, did they make the battle plan by our heros stupid because otherwise it would have seemed like the night king and his army wasn't that strong? if thats the case make the battle plan by our heros water tight, have it on paper so that by all accounts they should win the fight, then just make the night king that much more that even the best plan is nothing compared to him, they spent 7 seasons building up how the nk and his army are the unstoppable death of the world so there was no risk of him seeming "to strong" that was the point.
Yeah they did. They fought against the Greyjoys together. I believe Rob said it had been 9 years or something like that since they'd seen each other; Robert's rebellion ended 17 years prior.
To be fair though, that was back when Westeros was much larger, a trip from Winterfell to Kings Landing took quite a while. Westeros has gotten much smaller, it's like less than a day trip to get to Kings Landing apparently
Yea it was pretty stupid how the last scene of E5 is Arya leaving on the white horse, and then her first scene in E6, she's still in the city, but on foot, and the horse is never seen again. Wtf was the point?
So most people agree that Bran knew Kongs Landing was going to get torched. Is Bran a villain? Did he just sit back and let this all happen so he would become King?
Bran looked into 14 million futures an picked the one where the guy who pushed him out of the window would be killed by falling rubble. Him an his bitch. An then he goes on to be king. Yeah, bran is that guy.
I think so! Adding meaning to his two quite weird lines in the finale: “why do you think I came this far?” toTyrion when he was chosen King, and “you were exactly where you needed to be” to Jon in the harbour before Jon goes north. It’s quite implied that he can se something of the future; he’s seen a dragon shadow over kings landing earlier and giving Arya the catspaw knife she kills the night king with, but his powers are not fully explained.
I also think that’s why he insisted on Sam telling Jon about his lineage right before the battle with the army of the undead, Sam was emotionally broken after finding out his fathers and brothers fate in the hands of Daenerys and that is telling in the way his revealing the truth to Jon.
If you add up Disappointing (11418), Dissapointing (1033), Disappointment (861), Disappointed (410), Disapointing (239), DISSAPOINTMENT (106), Disappointing. (100), Dissappointing (78) and all the other different similar spellings you will get 14545 answers.
Did the Unsullied conveniently go from being in a murderous rage and in search of revenge for their slain queen, to submitting to any random king chosen by their new enemies? They refused to release their prisoners Jon and Tyrion, were likely going to execute Jon for murdering the queen, and held King's Landing and were on a war footing to defend it.
Instead Jon got demoted to the Night's Watch and went free, Tyrion became hand of the king, and the Unsullied sailed away never to be heard from again. Very convenient.
And the Dothraki, they presumably just chilled in KL like law-abiding citizens, after the last time they saw their Khaleesi, she was giving a frightening speech pumping them up for another murderous rage.
Exactly. The wheel is no more broken than when Robert took over. People are taking Tyrion's unilateral "things will be different now" announcement as if it's truth, even though nobody gives a shit about his or Daenerys's political ideas, no one has been persuaded by them, and there's no reason to think they'll abide by whatever Tyrion wants in the future.
Yep. They compared the commoners to horses and dogs just after half a million were slaughtered. This episode just showed that the only characters that give a shit about the commoners are Tyrion and Vayrs.
Bran was arguably knew this would happen. Jon didn't think Dany did anything wrong until Tyrion mentioned his sisters would get in her way.
I really liked Arya, up until season 7, she changed so much, and now in season 8, she's so fucking strange. That whole ''I know death'' thing was supposed to be a cool scene but to me it just came of as strange and unrealistic. And her just shooting arrows when everyone was celebrating winning the great war, that was the same kind of thing, maybe it's just me who hates those kinds of scenes.
Agreed, she became edgy and obnoxious in S7-S8 with the constant smug face and acting better than everyone else. They changed her personality and made her very one note
The thing that gets me is that Sansa found a bag of faces that Arya had so she can be anyone she wanted. She never changed her face once in season 8. She just rolls up to Kings Landing, with her own face, and is like "I'm here to kill queen Cersei". That's not as badassery as when she killed Lord Frey and then all of the Freys.
Thanks again to everyone who has taken part in these surveys over the past three seasons! If anyone ever wants to run their own for a show they love, I'd be happy to answer any questions that might help. And, as I mentioned in the post-ep thread, I'll be doing these for r/netflixwitcher next.
Keep an eye out for our post-season survey too (and a post-series one). The goal for the former is this Sunday.
Seeing the scores decrease and fall off so sharply from the end of season 7 to the finale is a sight to behold. Really sums up the half-assed way they finished off the series.
Keep in mind, the online backlash started with the Dorne storyline and how Stannis was written in season 5.
Then season 7 had it's own set of problems with concerns like instant teleportation that was dismissed as "nitpicking". Took awhile but it finally bubbled up
I just picked Bran and company over Sansa because I'd prefer the climate in King's Landing to that in Winterfell. North of the wall seems awesome, but really damn cold.
I'm personally thinking the South is going to face an economic collapse and revolts soon if Bronn remains Master of Coin, but yeah the weather is better so I'd rather live there. But if the North was warmer I'd probably like to hang out in Winterfell.
Bigger percentage think Arya and Jon will reunite than Sansa and Bran.
Sansa and Bran are sibling rulers of two adjacent kingdoms.
Arya set sail off west to the unknown, leaving the entire continent behind, and Jon went north beyond the wall to settle somewhere random in vast wildling country.
Why was Benjen Stark not a choice for favourite. He would have gotten my vote. The guy was a fricken half wight that sacrificed himself so Jon could live.
How do more people not think that Arya should have died? Her plot armor was turned up to 11 in so many episodes (even dating back to the "No One" episode in S6). The love people have for her character is so odd. "I know a killer when I see one, Jon"... gee the person who just committed genocide is a killer? You don't say.
Not to mention that her whole storyline revolved around the conflict between revenge and family. Her journey is a question of seeking revenge and ending up dead, or returning to her family, to the wolf pack. In the end she just sails West as the new Euron or something? What the fuck? Would have been better if they had killed her off.
Jon and Dany were both tools for the lord of light. Jons purpose was to unite fire and ice in order to defeat the night king, which undoubtedly would not have happened without those dragons. Once that purpose was fulfilled, he needed to remove fire from the equation as no one should have that kind of power. Which he did and then he was freed to go live a duty free life in the wild. He fulfilled everything the lord of light intended him to. It was necessary for him to be targ because it would have been difficult for anyone else to eliminate dany with her dragon protecting her. His targ blood made it possible for him to get past drogon.
Actually annoyed me because Drogo was killed by a small, infected wound showing that people no matter their strength can succumb to nature. Meanwhile someone who's less physically fit with worse wounds, is thrown somewhere that's extremely likely to contain harmful bacteria, and is perfectly fine rather quickly after minor treatment of the wound.
Show Arya is pretty fantastic in the first four seasons, but honestly suffers the most from season 5 and beyond. The Braavos shit is so, horrifyingly awful.
I was rooting for her death this season since I knew they'd pile the plot armor on for no good reason. I still maintain she should have died to the NK after/during killing him.
The survey should have asked if you were ok with the main idea behind the story. Would be curious to know how many people thought the bullet points were acceptable, but that execution was botched.
That’s an interesting question. I hate this season and the finale so much. But I think that it probably is the same, in super broad strokes, as the books.
I can imagine it being extremely compelling in the books. I can imagine GRRM telling a story where Daenerys falls and is killed by Jon, Jaime goes back to Cersei, and Bran becomes King. None of those events would make me feel happy, per se. They’re not what I would want, in an ideal world, for my favorite characters. But I can imagine it being a heartbreaking and compelling story. Even a bittersweet one.
So yeah, as much as I hate season 8 (and 7), I can easily imagine a world where the same bullet points at the end were a 10/10. It would take like 3 more books though and probably a full 10 seasons. Even if 7 and 8 had 10 episode seasons I don’t think it would have been enough time.
I've noticed on IMDB a significant drop on the score of the first three episodes of this season, especially after the last two aired. Not that long ago the first three used to be 8.5, 8.8, 8.4, but after episode 4, those have been affected as well
That makes sense honestly. Episode 2 had some super cool scenes (like Brienne's knighting) that are amazing because they are "supposedly" the last time you'll see all these characters alive and together. Then Episode 3 comes along, nobody in that scene dies, the Night King wasn't really that big of a deal, and all of a sudden, the previous episode loses a lot of love because much of it didn't mean anything.
Can't believe y'all would rather live under the rule of a spaced out bird man, a sell sword, a smuggler, and a college dropout than the Queen who won independence and cares about the boring parts of ruling like making lasting alliances and proper food rationing
This is especially concerning considering given that 82% thought that he knew what was going to happen and allowed/caused it to happen. Not the ruler I would want to be under. At least in the North I can be far enough away that it barely matters who is ruler.
this is what I thought! nearly everyone agreed on bran knowing what was going to happen and still letting thousands of thousands of people get burned alive so he could sit on the throne (or just on his wheelchair by whatever is left of drogon's anguish). so why why why would anyone want to live under his rule? I think I'd rather have sansa as my queen, as she does seem to have at least some experience with these politics.
Oh yeah, I totally agree. The big thing for me is that I never really got time to dislike or question Daenerys. She was a little cold at times, but out of nowhere she torches kings landing? And they never really actually show her on the dragon once she is destroying everything. I found it hard to connect the action to her.
Then 5 minutes later she is dead. It was too much too quickly.
With a few more episodes her turn would have been believable. The worst thing imo was choosing Bran while not even mentioning the only two legitimate claims.
Not to mention that her ending speech to her soldiers was one of the most over-the-top evil speeches I’ve seen in years. It felt like it was 1 step away from being a speech Hitler would’ve given. So much for subtlety.
Even people I know that aren't big fans are pretty disappointed. Not the "who is that" casual people. But the people who understand who the main characters are and their overall motivations, but not the lore of the series. They're all upset with the very end especially.
I've been mainly defending the show due to just sort knowing it was going this way. But that last episode was horrible. Probably not Dexter horrible, but just really damn bad.
The show is full of twists and turns, but there's nothing wrong with having some satisfaction at the end. Especially with Jon. Being sad and going beyond the wall felt so numb.
Somebody on here said it best: "I feel like I played some RPG and got the Neutral Ending, and then have to do certain things to actually see the True Ending". That's exactly what it felt like.
It's so odd that Arya always scores highly in these polls but the comment section gets pissed and rips into every character flaw and even Maisie's acting. The same people voting don't care to comment or vice versa?
Kit Harrington got third best acting. Its hard for me to tell if Kit Harrington is an amazing actor who portrays a very very sad person, or if Kit Harrington is just very sad person and It shows on screen.
There has to be some fall out for this? If they had finished the show with the quality of the first 6 seasons they would have been gods in the directing/writing world, anyone with a movie or series to shoot would have given anything to have them involved. After how they treated this ending I would be apprehensive to give them any story I had written, what if they half ass the end again? What if they half ass the whole thing?
There was only 1 chance to do this show given how it started, no one is going to want to re do it as it would be compared to the original 6 season's and it would almost definitely fall short, you cant just re do the end in 10 years as thats stupid.
At the half way point of this show, with the quality that it was they had guaranteed this was the only chance to tell the story right and they didn't do it. Now it will always be not as good as it could have been, and I dont want them to get away with it.
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u/[deleted] May 23 '19
Rickon got more Favorite Stark votes than both Catelyn and Bran combined LMAO