3.5: "Game of Thrones" Season 7 Finale: "Nobody Wins When The Family Feuds"
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On today’s episode, we're talking about Game of Thrones season 7, episode 7. I had SUCH a great time digging into what the finale did right, and what it got oh, so wrong. Leggo. Photos and notes below!
We start the episode in King’s Landing—the Kings and Queens are Landing! The gang’s back together again! But, nobody wins when the family feuds. This week’s episode highlighted issues with the season’s plotlines. Tyrion’s plan all season has been to show Cersei a Whight, hoping it would activate humanity in her, and push her to fight with the North against the Whights.
Let’s get into Cersei’s fashions! She mixes textures like nobody’s business! I have so many questions for the costumers! Cersei is giving me fall 2017 luxe plush crushed black velvet. Armor has been incorporated into her character’s wardrobe from season 1. Back then with the armored corset belt in season 1, to the intensification of it after Robert’s death. After a mother’s mercy, we see another full shift in her costuming. But post mother’s mercy, she’s like READY FOR THAT WAR READY FOR THAT WAR READY!
Daenerys and Jon are in King’s Landing calling for a truce with Cersei. Cersei’s ultimatum, after she experiences the terror of the Whights, calls for Jon Snow to remain neutral in the North. Cersei is trying to make Jon Snow the same offer she made Ned Stark--“Go die in your frozen wasteland and leave us alone.” Ned said no, got imprisoned, and we know how that worked out. We see the same thing happening now, the same offer being extended. Instead of saying “No,” Jon says, “No, because I’m with Daenerys Targaryen!” Meanwhile, while the male starks continuously ride south to fight the battles of others, WHO RUNS THE WORLD/ THE NORTH?! GIRLS!
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Near the end of the episode, we're in Winterfell, pouring one out for the homie LIttlefinger, who rode the wagon (horse?) until the wheels fell off. The Stark kids are back in the ‘Fell, and Sansa turns the tables like a G.
Rush thinks the Sansa-Arya character arc is the strongest of the season. “A lot of times in shows like this, women are strong if they take up male characteristics like Arya. But they’re rarely strong if they take up feminine ones like Sansa. You see Arya abandoning her femininity (something she never really cared for to begin with) to become a warrior. But Sansa never abandons her femininity, but uses it and her experience as a survivor to beat LIttlefinger, the guy who had been manipulating things from the jump.
- MEANWHILE, AT THE WALL, THE NIGHT KING HAS A NEW WHIP!
The Night King: “Stop having people at your shows who wasn’t at rehearsal. Aaand then the ice-zombie dragon starts breathing ice fire…? A song of ice and fire?! The fire destroys the wall, and we see Tormund and the team running from the wall as a portion of the Wall at Eastwatch comes down and the dead come marching through.
Final Thoughts on Season 7
We feel like this season was rushed. Not only logistically (time, continuity), but also in terms of plot and suspended disbelief. It feels like what happens when you’re working with a live entity like high-budget primetime TV. It comes with the territory-you have a lot of money you need to spend quick fast in a hurry and BIG. The focus was “CGI! LIVE ANIMALS! PYROTECHNICS!” which are all expensive AF. There are big machines behind endeavors like this. It felt like the first half of season 7 suffered under the weight of that machine.
This was a sprawling season with a lot of plotlines. But what’s upsetting is, if you watch earlier seasons of GoT (1-3) and compare to this season, it’s like night and day in terms of character dev. What made me fall in love with the show wasn’t that there were dragons and half naked women in every other scene. I can watch any show with that. It was the political intrigue, the writing, how it all felt like a chess game. Now it just seems like all the characters are stripped down and their plots are moving at warp speed to fastest possible conclusion. It feels like the writers are done with the show and have been done for a season and a half.
