A Game of What's Next?

A Game of What's Next?

One more Game of Thrones post before it goes into the archives, only to be released come 9 months from now. Let's all face the facts - last week's season ender, to many, didn't feel all that much like a closer to the season. It didn't have the big punch in the face that dragons did in the first one or the white walkers did in the second season closer.

One of the biggest complaints I hear is that they didn't introduce lady Stoneheard. Yeah, in the book she's brought back to life 3 days after the red wedding, and it works fine in a book because there's not a whole 9 months of real time between reading about her death and getting to the epilogue, but again, that was in the epilogue of the book. And while the show doesn't do flash back scenes, I do think that It would be very silly to give you this huge impact of her death and nobody would have any amount of time to ruminate on the death of Catelyn if they simply brought her back at the end of another 60 minutes from when she died.

Putting it in there for the sake of having a shocking ending to the season to punch you in the face is not a good enough reason, if you ask me. Besides that, the sooner that we gain Stoneheart, the sooner we lose the lightning lord. And let's be honest, I'd trade away a Stoneheart reveal for a few more scenes of the Band before they become a single minded Frey killing machine.

Did people really want Stoneheart to be revealed? Besides taking the oomf out of the Red Wedding scene an episode ago, in the books it was half a book to the reveal, then you'd need to do something for the next two years before she meets up again with Brienne. And hanging around just randomly killing Frey redshirts will get pretty boring and repetitive quickly. Just look at how boring Theon's torture scenes were pretty bland this season.

Another complaint was about the lack of Coldhands. I'm sorry, but introducing a new character in the last 15 minutes of a season would be really dumb. Especially in a show that has this many characters already. I don't know why everyone is so attached to Coldhands. Yeah, he's cool, but till Rickon  gets to the North, you really could skip out on the majority of his character.


Aside from that, how could folks see the season finale as a bad episode? Arya's coin trick was pretty amazing part and she got to finally kill. That in itself was excellent. As well as the letter by Ramsay. It's interesting to see what they're going to do with Yara this next season.

Perhaps it's a case that people were mad not because it didn't follow the book, but because the finale, to most, was a bit bland with very little punches in comparison to the previous episode. But let's be honest, do most folks not follow HBO shows? That has become a standard with this show. The episode before the last of the season usually had the bigger of the bangs. Take Treme or the Wire for example.

There's still plenty to look forward to with this show, so I don't see why anyone is complaining that they didn't just cram everything into this last episode for shock value.

Next season is going to be busy:
- Balon's death
- Brienne / oathkeeper - Even if she's at Kings Landing a bit too early. So maybe she'll hang around till Sansa leaves.
- Joffrey's wedding
- Tyrion's trial
- Mountain vs. Oberyn
- Attack at the wall / Stannis the Mannis' part to be played there
- Tyrion finding out the truth
- all the events in the Vale

See all that we have to look forward to? In retrospect, there was a lot to love. From the opening with Robb Wind scene being so brutal and in your face. Those who marathon the season will not have the chance to get up before they get kicked in the stomach again. Then you had Yara grabbing the 50 best killers to go save her little brother, as well as the already mentioned Arya killing, then you had Dany, walking into a crowd any one of whom could kill her -- even if they looked like homeless folks. These were all scene after scenes of good punches. And while it may not be a White Walker or some Dragons hatching, those scenes combined together, added with just coming off the red wedding, the audience needed a moment to not get a major sucker punch again to close it out.